Presence

So, Sheldon and Heidi were in Dayton in the last few days.

So the church in Dayton seems to be doing well and growing.

When they mentioned the number of people, I realized there were many that I didn't know.

They'll be here for the Good Friday and Easter weekend.

A few of them will be here, so you'll get to see them.

So Heidi and Sheldon were there in Dayton.

Then Sheldon and Jane are going to Hawaii next week, and not on a holiday.

They're going there.

One of the things that happens in Hawaii is a whole lot of young believers.

Turn up there at Kona usually for YWAM related activity where they are trained.

Since most people in Hawaii won't be watching this, we want to steal a few of them.

Maybe set them up and then let them go and do whatever they want.

Intent is not to add to numbers, but the intent is can we give them something that we have

and then they can go wherever they're supposed to and function even better perhaps if what

we have to give them is good.

So they're going to Hawaii and will be there for a few days and see if there are people

that we can get in touch with Hawaii.

Then there'll be regular trips from Vancouver to Hawaii.

I'm sure it's one of the missions.

My God, stop, stop.

I can't handle this.

Like Moses said, the number of volunteers that came and offered themselves for mission

was overwhelming.

He said no.

That's happening this next weekend.

They'll be there.

Then in March or April, I forgot the date, July, March or April, for certain, Jill, Evan,

Jane and maybe a few others will go to Tokyo and Yokohama because Japan, can I not have

an echo?

They'll go to Tokyo and Yokohama because I'm very sure that Japan is one of the places

that we will break open.

When you say break open, it sounds like nobody else has done it.

Perhaps people have it, but it's a highly unsuccessful territory.

Very few have been able to make a dent and grow something that always ends up with sufficient

resistance and it's a polite resistance.

One of the things you can begin to do is just begin to bless the land.

The last time I was in Japan was when Prashant got kidnapped.

That's how I always associated Japan with Prashant's kidnapping.

I don't know why.

I was just taking a bus from the Tokyo airport to the hotel and I get a call saying, Prashant

is kidnapped.

The first reaction was, ha ha ha.

Then I realized, oh no.

It's true.

I'm looking forward to the Japan trip because I really believe we will be able to break

it open.

Some churches, and again, all this can sound so immodest and presumptuous, but some churches

have the ability to break open some nations and this is one nation that we'll be able

to break open.

Jill's been there before and so that helps some and then the others will go with her.

By the time we get to April, we may have a few going there.

So I'm looking forward to that.

Then Brandon went to Icaluit and around the same time he was in Icaluit on the ground,

I was flying above Icaluit and I realized that the temperature on the ground and the

temperature in the air was the same, minus 44.

On the ground he was minus 44.

You can't see me flying above there, but in the air it was as cold.

It said minus 44 in the air too.

If anyone ever sends you to Icaluit either, it's because they think highly of you, don't

think highly of you at all.

That's what it looks like on a bright morning.

So any other pictures that you want to enlighten us with?

Yeah, this basically sums up the, this sums up Icaluit and so he went there and there

is no transport service.

There's a guy who runs a taxi service and he's also your Doe Dash and he's also your

Uber.

And so because the pipes had burst where Brandon was living, he decided to take Brandon

on a tour of Icaluit, which took about seven or eight minutes and then they brought him

home.

So, I'm kidding, it took longer than that.

So he went to Icaluit, but why to Icaluit?

For two reasons guys.

One, I don't know if you've read stories about guys like Ernest Shackleton who went to the

North Pole or, bet you've never heard of this guy called Tenzing Norkay.

Everybody has heard of Edmund Hillary.

Nobody hears?

Yeah.

Yeah.

And so these are guys who you don't hear of or you don't know what they did.

You only hear of Hillary who climbed Everest.

But guys like Norkay were the ones who carried the oxygen tanks, who took them from base

camp to almost the peak and then they stop and they let someone else go ahead.

So that was kind of why we sent Brandon because we know he can handle the cold and among other

things.

And so he went there and the two things that were asked of him were, hey, can you go, let

me read it out.

This is what I sent him.

Two things, Brandon.

Find a non-religious indigenous organization that helps young Inuits and give them $100

or find a young indigenous family that you can help with a $100 grocery cart.

Not necessarily to a church, to an either to a non-religious indigenous organization

or a young indigenous family.

And two, go to the NTI museum, the museum that is in Iqaluit and find a sculpture called

intergenerational trauma.

And there's this horrible looking sculpture of intergenerational trauma caused supposedly

by the church and go and begin to pray.

And some of the prayers that he was supposed to pray were coming from Isaiah 58, verse

Isaiah 58:5–12

5 to 12, Isaiah 49, 23 to 25.

Just so we know what it says.

Because this was the first thing that had to be done.

Before anybody else goes there, there must be, whoever went there the first time, I felt

the Lord saying, carry a spirit of reconciliation.

For all the abuse the Inuit have suffered, one of our works in Iqaluit is to release

Ephesians 2, 13 to 14.

Ephesians 2, 13 to 14.

Ephesians 2, 13 to 14.

And it says there, remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from

citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of promise without hope and without

God in the world.

But now in Christ Jesus, you who were once far away have been brought near through the

blood of Christ.

And then verse 14, for he himself is our peace who has made the two one and has destroyed

the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility.

And so there's more along those lines that he was supposed to function and he was able

to do both.

Isaiah 58, 5 to 12.

You guys know this one.

Isaiah 58, 5 to 12.

This is the kind of fast I have chosen.

Only a day for a man to humble himself?

Is it only bowing one's head like a reed?

For lying on sackcloth and ashes?

Is that what you call a fast?

A day acceptable to the Lord?

Is it not this kind of fasting I have chosen?

To lose the chains of injustice, untie the cords of the yoke, set the oppressed free,

break every yoke?

Is it not to share your food with the hungry, to provide the poor wanderer with shelter,

to not turn away from your own flesh and blood?

Then your light will break forth like the dawn.

Your healing will quickly appear.

Your righteousness will go before you.

The glory of the Lord will be your rear guard.

Then you will call and the Lord will answer.

You will cry for help and he will say, here am I.

If you do away with the yoke of oppression, with a pointing finger, with a malicious talk,

if you spend yourself in behalf of the hungry, satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your

light will rise in darkness.

Your night will become like the noonday.

The Lord will guide you always.

He will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and strengthen your frame.

You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fade.

Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins, will raise up age-old foundations.

You will be called repairer of broken walls, restorer of streets to dwell in.

And so that was his mandate and that's what he went to do.

That seems like a very expensive trip to do two things and come back.

But that's how these things work.

And so I applaud him for what he did.

Paying out of his own pocket close to $3,000, go there to do these two things and come back

so that we can follow.

And so I honor you man publicly for what you did.

And then the last trip that happened around the same time was the stoneway in the Hebrides

and we've been talking about the Hebrides since January 2021.

So we've been talking about it, not these pictures.

We've been talking, keep going backwards Brandon.

Keep going till the beginning of this stuff.

So we've been talking about, yeah you figure it out and I'll keep talking.

So we've been talking about Hebrides since January 2021, that's two years.

And this year in the beginning, fell the law saying one of the places that we need to go is Hebrides.

So I called up a guy from Bahrain and that's Elvin, Phoebe from LA, Betty and Gillian from here

and KJ from the UK.

And we went to Stoneway, which is this tiny little town off the coast of Scotland.

And went to this church where the revival started 70 years ago, it's called Barvers.

That town is dead, eh?

Dead.

The churches are empty.

It was a revival that touched young people.

There are no young people in the churches anymore.

This was a building where the revival started and all it is is a building, nothing else.

And you realize suddenly that it's so not the place.

It's got nothing to do with the place.

And so we were standing there and the strange thing was the day,

every time we would land in a particular town that we were supposed to go to,

this can only be God because it's impossible otherwise,

as soon as we appear and get out of the car, a rainbow would come.

So when we landed in Glasgow before we take the next plane to Stoneway, a rainbow.

Here, this is in Glasgow.

This is the next one is in this town called Barvers.

As soon as we would land, the rainbow would appear.

And then we go to another place called Arnold where the revival spread to, another rainbow.

It didn't matter where you were.

It was almost like God saying from Genesis 9.13 that,

listen, I have made a covenant with you and with the earth.

I have made a covenant with you and with the earth.

And what is that covenant?

What is that promise that we should expect in the coming wild?

That there will be something that will happen globally between the 20s and the 30s

that will begin to spread like wildfire.

It will happen.

Hebrides 2.0.

In its own sense, it'll be different from the first one.

So we go to this place called Barvers and from there we drive to this place called Arnold.

And go one more.

Yeah, we met this man.

He's a, he now is a, it's kind of a tour guide.

He is in a little house that houses all kinds of historic facts.

And we're talking to him and everywhere we went, guys,

you bring up the revival and everybody is so hesitant.

Everybody is so jaded.

It's like everyone thinks, yeah, it did happen.

And yeah, it can happen, but no one has any expectancy.

Zero expectation.

The only thing I could compare it with is Canuck fans.

It was like, it was like, yeah, one day we'll get the Stanley Cup,

but really nobody believes it.

I mean, it's been 50 years now.

This is the 50th year, 52 years and yeah, next year, next year.

It never happens.

It's almost, that's the only thing I could really connect to.

And this time I'm really not joking.

It was that kind of a sense that yeah, it did happen, but nothing's going to happen.

And so we go there, we meet this guy.

And this guy took a while before he was able to open his mouth.

We were very obvious in telling him we were believers,

but slowly he began to warm up.

And then again, solid scriptures.

The guy knows the Bible in and out.

When he speaks, he is more scriptural than most people I've met, but no expectation.

And then as we begin to speak, we realize that his dad,

when he was 16, was at the revival.

And in some of the excerpts I've read you,

and he's in this book called Sounds of Heaven.

He's in almost every book about the revival, his dad.

And this was a young 16-year-old who Duncan Campbell saw sitting in a church.

And I remember reading this excerpt out to you where it says,

and as I was preaching at that church, I realized that there was sufficient resistance.

And I looked around and I saw a 16-year-old boy.

And I turned to him and I said to God,

this boy seems to be more in touch with you than I.

And so I turned to him and I said to the young lad,

why don't you stand up and pray?

And the boy stood up.

And it is this guy's father.

The boy stood up and he looked up to heaven.

And he had read Revelations 4 that day.

And he looked up to heaven and he said,

I see the lion and the lamb seated on the throne.

And I see he has the keys of heaven and hell, death and hell.

And I see that there is tremendous power there.

And the boy looked up, he put up his hands and he said,

oh God, won't you let that power lose?

And the moment he said that, the Spirit of God comes upon the church.

And the whole place begins to shake.

There were houses that were shake, that literally shook there.

But you can't find that house because all the houses there look the same.

Every house has the same look.

But there's no point looking for artifacts anymore because the place is dead.

But his dad was one of those guys who was so...

And then he begins to speak.

And the only thing he could tell us,

one of the things he kept telling us about his dad,

is that my dad would keep telling me that the presence of God

would come into towns.

Go back a picture, a couple of pictures.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, this town hasn't changed much.

You can spot the house numbers just as they were before, 70 years ago.

And God would come into this town.

And what do you mean God would come into this town?

Suddenly people who were working would begin to feel the sense of weeping.

And they would begin to weep and they would not know what they were weeping about.

But they knew enough because it was Judeo-Christian culture

that if I'm weeping and something isn't happening in my heart,

maybe I should go to a church.

Maybe I should find a Christian.

Maybe I should find a pastor.

Because God had already started moving in waves over the last few years,

they would run to a church, a pastor or a Christian,

and they would say, please, can you help?

And then they would get converted.

And it began to happen for four or five years

where his dad began to say to live without the presence of God was subnormal.

There would be this sense.

And yet despite that sense,

only about 15 to 20 percent of the town actually got converted.

Others did in subsequent witnessing and all this stuff.

But the presence of God would touch people and wouldn't know what to do.

The place still has only 7,000 people.

If you take the entire island, this town perhaps has 800 people.

That's less than the people who live in my building.

But that was a sense.

We went to a church there.

Move some pictures up.

Keep going.

Yeah, we went to a church there.

Picked a church in Baravas where all this started.

Went to a church, there were no young people.

No young people.

And yet God is saying,

Hebrews 2.0 will be something that will happen globally

between 20s and in amongst 20s and 30s.

And that you guys will ignite it and it'll spread and it won't be stoppable.

And it'll change the earth for 60, 70, 80 years

in terms of altering the direction.

And that he'll write this revival as one that is,

I mean, I want to use the word awakening

because the word revival just bothers me every time I say it

because everybody is talking about it for hundreds of years.

And yet I am saying to you that the reason we've been preparing it

for two years is so that expectancy builds.

And so we come back to Stornoway.

This was just me telling them who we are

because we doubled the size of the church, almost.

It reminded me of when X-29 used to be super small

and when a family used to come in, it would be like,

wow, we went from five to 10.

And so it was that sense.

And so one of the things I started singing during worship,

the guy was playing up and the words were,

who will dig up the ancient wells?

Who will climb up the holy hill?

Who will lift up the ancient gates?

For this is the year of awakening.

And so if you asked, why did you go to Stornoway?

Why did, what is the need to go to Stornoway since it's a dead town?

It is, can you unclog the wells that your forefathers dug

and that the Philistines have clogged?

Genesis 26.

Can you unclog?

Abraham digs wells.

He names them.

And after naming them, the Philistines clogged them up.

Can you go unclog those wells

and rename them what your fathers named them?

That is the intent.

That was the intent.

And then very clearly I felt God saying,

listen, after you've done this trip,

you've got to come back to Vancouver.

You cannot just continue.

Because I was supposed to go to Bahrain and India.

It made so much sense when I was in London to continue

because I'm halfway there.

So I came back.

I was back here for three days and then I left again.

And why bring it up?

Because sometimes, guys, it may cost you twice as much,

but what choice do you have?

It was like, this is separate.

Now that you've done, begin the rest of the year.

And so came back here, was here from Tuesday to Friday

and left again on Friday and went to other places.

And I'll quickly show you those pictures

and then we can get to the teaching.

This was in Pune in India.

There's this beautiful church there.

And many of them are former Hindus, Marathi speaking.

Marathi is a native language.

And it's amazing what happens there.

And the house churches, eight, nine house churches.

And so one of the things that we have, guys,

that we don't realize because it's become a way of life

is spontaneity.

Being spontaneous is not normal for most people.

For you guys, it's become normal.

So for them to have that come in,

they're very good at what they do,

systematic and going forward.

But this just adds to them.

But it's amazing the work that this church does.

They just keep going forward.

And very ordinary people like us, very ordinary.

Nobody's qualified.

I'll tell you about these three ladies later.

This was in Bahrain after I went there.

After those two ladies that are kneeling down,

maybe there's another picture.

Yeah, these two ladies, they're from Saudi Arabia.

And one is from South Africa, one is from India.

And so we had already gone to Saudi once.

And we're starting a small group there

that will eventually grow.

And this lady from South Africa is the one who leads it.

She had finished her contract.

She was heading home.

She's got family.

She's got to take care of her family.

And so she was heading home.

She had finished her contract.

She had made whatever she needed to make to live well in Saudi.

And so when we went there two, three months ago,

had a prophetic word over.

And instead of going home, she said, no, my work is not done.

So she renewed her contract for another couple of years

so that she finishes as it starts what God said she should start.

And then go.

I mean, this kind of stuff just blows my mind.

When people put God and others before everything else,

it blows my mind.

She was done.

She was leaving.

And so they came to Bahrain, laid hands on them,

and prayed.

Any questions?

You can turn the lights on.

I think those are the pictures, right?

Okay.

Any questions, guys?

Cool.

Okay.

Want to talk about weight of presence.

And so I take you back to this idea of going around those towns in Stornoway

and hearing stories of how people kept talking about...

Strange thing was I bought a book in Glasgow.

And it is only after I bought the book and I was reading the 16th chapter

that I found out that the 16th chapter was the narrative from this guy's dad.

He didn't even tell us that his dad was that involved.

He didn't tell us anything.

When I'm reading the book, the book talks about his dad and what his dad did.

That's the degree of expectancy that there's almost a fear that

this thing was in the past.

It'll never happen again.

And if expectancy dies, then what do you have?

God does things sovereignly, but he prefers working with us.

And so when you read these books and hear first-hand accounts, you hear about presence.

And guys, it's not that presence is ever absent, not that presence is ever absent.

It is that we are not aware of presence.

It's not that presence is ever absent.

Ever since Christ rose and Acts chapter two happened,

ever since Acts chapter two, presence has never been absent.

It's just that we're not aware of it.

We can be aware of the Bible.

We can be aware of the Word.

We can be aware of even me speaking later on.

And I can be aware of me speaking right now,

but we suddenly lose the acute awareness of him here.

As in, right now, the King is here.

And the moment we begin to think like that, you become aware of him who is here,

and everything finds its rightful place.

It's not imagination.

What we don't realize is we have brand new spirits saturated with the Holy Spirit.

And it is so easy for each person who is born again to become instantly aware of the King here.

And in the awareness of his presence, both the preaching and the hearing,

both the teaching and the learning, both the little shifts here and the little wind there,

everything becomes so much easier.

So what if we could hear in the presence of the King?

What if I could teach in the presence of the King?

And so, in a sense, he operates on three levels all the time.

There is him on the throne in heaven.

In heaven, it says, and John talks about how he saw the heavens open,

and he saw him who is seated on the throne and the lamb.

Isaiah talks about how in the years after Uzziah died, he saw heavens open,

and he saw the King seated on the throne and his robe filled the temple.

So on one hand, we know him as on the throne.

On the other hand, we know from 1 Corinthians 6 and from Revelation 1 and 4 that he is in our midst right now.

So he is here.

At the moment, I mean, you know, sometimes create patterns for yourself.

Like you'll find in your building, if you're going down the elevator,

and if it's a relatively new building, when you walk to the elevator, you will see a sign,

or you go to the mall and it'll say, you are here.

It'll show you where you are.

It's not, you are here.

It's like, oh, you are here.

Become aware of it.

Create patterns where you become more and more conscious of him.

We are not.

It's never his absence for us.

It's only an awareness of his presence that we need.

It's a habit that must be created.

It's a habit that must be created as a people and as individuals.

So he's here.

The king of the universe is right now in our midst.

And the more we become aware of him, the more anything can happen at any time because he kings.

He kings.

The more we are aware of him, the easier things happen without effort.

Third place he is.

Third place he is.

Is he is in you.

He is in you.

In you.

He is in you.

He is in you.

His presence is holy.

His presence is loving.

He is there in absolute holiness.

He lives in you.

In loyal love he lives in you.

With the compassion that only a father has he lives in you.

With the power to make all things new he lives in you.

So that's the third part and then there's a fourth part.

He is in his world.

He's out there.

He's continuously working.

What is he doing?

He's buying back.

He's claiming back because he's already bought back.

He's claiming all that which is his.

He was working on your life before someone came and said that last sentence or the last word that changed you from the dominion of darkness into the kingdom of light.

He's out there working.

Continuously.

Why?

Because remember who he is.

It says before there was anything he was.

He was king before there was anything.

He was before all things.

Colossians 1, 15-20 just describes it so beautifully.

Colossians 1, 15-20 describes it beautifully.

It says that guys one of the things we have to realize is the one who is here right now and is listening to us is the one who is listening to us.

The one who is here right now and is listening to what we are doing and knows our hearts and sees each one of us.

The one who is here right now.

This one that we are talking about.

He was before all things.

Suddenly sometimes you want to take your shoes off.

We are not in the presence of Jesus of Nazareth.

We are not in the presence of super flesh.

We are in the presence of him who was before anything else.

We are in the presence of him who is here right now who created the universe.

If you ask Alexa if there is anything bigger than the universe, Alexa will say no there is nothing bigger than the universe.

And to the extent that they can see, if you were to think of the Milky Way as one galaxy and it was the size of a CD,

the extent that they have discovered the next galaxy, the farthest extent is about 9 miles away.

If you were to think of the Milky Way as one galaxy, the farthest galaxy they could place if that was another CD would be 9 miles away.

We can't even compute.

The closest star besides the sun would take you 70,000 years to get to.

If you took the fastest spacecraft that presently exists, Evan would be 70,000 years and 26 by the time you get there.

We cannot imagine and yet it says he created all this and that not only did he create it, he created it for himself.

He created it for himself.

It was created through him, for him.

And then he talks about these unseen realms that he created.

They were created for him too.

This king who is present here then still goes ahead.

And instead of doing what he did with Noah when he said, I'm going to restart creation, instead of restarting creation,

instead of doing what he threatened he would do with Moses, he says, Moses move out of the way.

Let me wipe out this generation of stiff neck stubborn people and let me start again.

Instead of doing that, he decides, okay, I will pay a price to get back that which I created.

And he pays a price.

And so the king who is in our midst is that kind of king.

And he's not hesitant at all to show up with his presence.

It's just that we have not practiced being aware of his presence.

We have not practiced being aware of his presence.

And if we are practicing being aware of his presence, we will not be able to continue being the same.

You cannot be the same.

If you are the way you are and I am the way I am, it is because one, we are not practicing an awareness of his presence.

And two, if we are, we would be changed.

Any questions before I go on?

So in a sense, you guys are being squeezed.

You are being squeezed by presence from outside and then you are being squeezed by presence from inside.

You cannot escape it.

The only way to escape it is to be dull to it or expect it during worship.

And that is sad.

When the presence of God is only experienced during worship, it is sad.

Which is why it is only during worship that you hear lines like, can you sense his presence?

That's terrible.

That's so Old Testament.

But they had to go to the temple to see his presence.

Now, maybe, yes, the intensity of his presence can increase and decrease depending on the sensitivity of his people.

And sometimes sensitivity does increase with fasting, with worship, yes.

But let it not be said of a church that, my God, if you go for their worship services, you feel the presence of God.

Because there is something so warped about that in terms of New Testament believers.

An awareness of his presence.

That is so normal for you when you leave this place.

And it will keep increasing, guys.

It will keep increasing.

Till at work you become aware of it.

That is the ultimate test, eh?

When at work you become aware of his presence, you know something has changed.

Because there is so much pressure at work.

That is when you realize, ah shucks, something has shifted.

Because I am being pressed in from within.

What do you mean when the Bible says deep calls to deep?

What's really happening?

Someone inside you is also the same one who is around you.

And that one inside you, that is one with your spirit, so easily identifies the one outside.

And it will change you.

And I will see the change and you will see the change.

One of the things about the presence of God, once you become aware of it is, it is just natural to become holy.

Because everything about presence is holy.

They say God is love.

I would like to say to you that God is first holy.

Because his love is holy.

His kindness is holy.

His fatherhood is holy.

His compassion is holy.

His war is holy.

His vengeance is holy.

His favor is holy.

His son is holy.

His spirit is holy.

His angels are holy.

His majesty is holy.

His brilliance is holy.

We see that in flashes in Matthew 17 at the mount of transfiguration.

And we see him in his divinity in the island of Patmos.

But suddenly he is seen in his holiness.

People want the Shekinah of God.

It's all around us.

Who is the Shekinah?

The Holy Spirit.

How does he come to us?

How do the father and the son come to us?

How is the king present here right now?

He is here.

How is he here right now?

He is here with us.

He is here with us.

He is here with us.

Who is he here right now?

He is here by his spirit.

And who is the spirit?

It is the Holy Spirit.

He is here.

Holy is set apart.

There is something so set apart about him.

And once you confront...

One of my cries over the last two, three weeks is very simple.

Oh God, can I have a face-to-face encounter with the terrifying holiness of God?

Because I haven't had one.

The terrifying holiness of God.

Can you undo me to a point where the only way to survive is if you reshape me again?

Because I do not know the terrifying holiness of God.

I do not.

What is it to come face-to-face with the terrifying holiness of God?

What will it do to you?

Will it do the same thing that it did to Isaiah?

Why is it that Peter reacts so strangely when he is asked to throw the net on the other side?

And he catches a whole lot of fish.

Why is his comment,

Get away from me Jesus for I am a sinful man.

Why is that his comment?

Why isn't it, praise God, hallelujah, I've got a whole catch of fish.

Can these scales be removed so I see him in his holiness?

And then may I be undone so that I can be reshaped?

We are not asking God to make us holy.

He's done that already.

We are asking God in the awareness of your presence, can my ethics, can my behavior, can my heart change?

We'll talk about that.

We'll talk about that.

The idea of God being set apart in Kadosha and the church being called out are so, so natural.

It's an ecclesia, a called out people who serve as set apart God.

We'll talk about holy some more.

So how do we practice this presence?

How do we practice this presence?

That's what I wanted to do today.

To practice presence, we have to ask the question, why is he here?

Why is he here with his presence?

Why is he here?

Why is his presence here on earth?

Why is his presence here on earth?

Because to practice presence you have to have the same intent of God.

Same intent of God.

So guys, if you're feeling sleepy, if you're feeling distracted,

plead with the one who is here to not have you sleepy and to come back into not being distracted.

Just ask him, why is he here?

Is he here?

Be it Isaiah 43.19,

be it Romans 8, 18-23,

or be it Revelation 21,

Revelation 21:4

verse 4 and 6.

He's here, verse 4 to 6.

He's here for one reason.

I have come to make...

Oh, I'm sorry, I'm muttering to myself.

He's here for one reason.

I have come to make all things new.

Can that be your intent?

You've got to share God's intent.

Why is his presence here?

Why is he here on earth?

What is the king doing?

Yes, the king is kinging.

But what does kinging look like?

What does kinging look like?

Kinging looks like making all things new.

Making all things new where?

First in me, first in the immediate influence of my family, in my sphere.

And then kinging everywhere.

What does kinging look like?

Sometimes King Jesus taught,

What if I drew what I'm saying right now from his presence?

Do you think that would be richer than my notes?

Obviously.

What if you heard with ears that acknowledged and was aware of his presence?

Do you think you would understand better?

Yes.

What does kinging look like in a meeting or in a one-on-one?

If I become aware of his presence, he begins to king.

Why?

Because he said, I'm in your midst and because I'm in your midst, the kingdom is here.

What is his intent?

What is the intent of his presence here on earth?

Why is the Holy Spirit here on earth?

Very simple.

Behold, I have made all things new.

Go to Revelation 21.

Revelation 21, verse 4 to 6.

Revelation 21:4–6

Look at what the ultimate intent is.

I heard a verse 3.

I heard a voice thunder from the throne.

Look, look, God has moved into the neighborhood,

making his home with men and women.

They are his people.

He's their God.

He's already begun.

This is the end, but he's already begun.

He'll wipe every tear from their eyes.

Death is gone for good.

Tears gone, crying gone, pain gone.

All the first order of things gone.

The enthroned continued.

Look, I'm making everything new.

Write it all down, each word, dependable and accurate.

Then he said, it's happened.

I'm A to Z.

I'm beginning.

I'm conclusion.

From the water of life, I'll give freely to anybody who is thirsty.

He is making all things new.

Guys, I'll tell you why this is super, super important.

If you do not know why his presence is here,

it does not matter that you are aware of presence.

It will do nothing through you.

Hear me again.

Hear me again.

Hear me carefully, George.

Hear me carefully, Anil.

If I'm aware of his presence, but I do not know why his presence is here,

it's like having a gadget that has been given to you,

but you don't know what to do with it.

The intent of his presence is very simple.

I'm here to make all things new.

Please join me.

I can do it sovereignly on my own, but I really want to do it through you.

I want to move through you, George.

I want to move through you, Anil.

I want to make things new.

It doesn't matter whether it's music or engineering,

whether it's business or life.

I want to make things new through you.

That intent must solidify.

That's one.

The second thing, if you want, any questions on that before we move on?

Yeah.

What if someone argues that this is not for birth, but for death?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So if someone argues that this is after death, they are right.

The pain, the tears, the fears will not all go away till the ultimate.

But meanwhile, we are supposed to do it here.

How?

Like King Jesus did.

Why did he come here on earth?

He was showing us a taste of what the future will look like.

Hey, I'm already doing this, and one day I'll conclude it.

So, ah, I see a withered hand.

It is broken.

It is mangled.

It is misshapen.

This was not how I created this man.

But behold, I have come to make all things new.

Do you want to stretch out your hand?

And he stretches out your hand, and the withered hand becomes old.

And he's giving us a foretaste.

And then he's saying, I've got to go, but I cannot leave you as orphans.

So let me send my spirit.

Which spirit is this?

What is his intent?

His intent is the same as in Isaiah 61 and Luke 4 where the scroll was open.

And when the scroll was open, what did Jesus read?

That the Spirit of God is upon me.

To do what?

To make everything new.

How?

That the bankrupt may hear the good news.

That the blind may see.

That the deaf may hear.

That prisoners may be set free.

That captives may go.

That sorrow may be replaced.

That oaks of righteousness may grow.

That heaviness may be displaced.

That's his intent.

And so if the Spirit of God is here, and that is what was said in Isaiah 61 and Luke 4, surely it is the same thing now.

Because it says so in Acts 10, 2.

That the Spirit of God is here so that the harassment by the devil may come to an end.

And you may experience the goodness of God.

The intent should, we must match the intent of God.

If we do not match the intent of God, we would not know what to do with the awareness of the Spirit.

In our own little ways, we are meant to do this.

And that is why he has this beautiful thing called the body.

Because where Lorian goes and where Penny goes and where Cherubi goes and where Diana goes, there's a place that none of us will be able to go.

But now he has his many splendid body, meeting many splendid people.

And his intent is, hey, this person is made in my image and they've been ruined by sin.

Can you work with me in making all things new?

I'm trying. I'm saying to God, Father, can I at least look happy?

Yeah, we don't look happy.

We look terribly Christian when we are walking in the malls and stuff like that.

Yeah, it is soo. But if I followed each of you and actually looked at how we notice people, how we notice everything,

how sometimes we are so obsessed with our own ways and thoughts that we don't look like the most approachable people that a child will run into.

That's a test, eh? As you're walking in the mall, will every child run into your arms?

Maybe some of you are glad. When I was flying back, I said it takes 29 hours to fly back.

I got 29 hours to practice looking absolutely glad and happy.

It's been a long trip.

Hi, Kevin.

Kevin was the guy on the last leg.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Because in his presence, it's fullness of joy.

And if there is fullness of joy, then it is not enough for it to show in my face.

If I spend three days with you, will I come out looking sourer or will I come out looking happier?

I pray God that that is the case.

I have come to make all things new.

He kings with his presence. He kings with his presence.

Next one.

Practice presence by making it a priority.

Practice presence by making it a priority.

Practice presence by making it a priority.

We have an opportunity over the next many months to make it a priority.

We have an opportunity over the next many months to make this a priority in my life and your life.

Not practice presence. Forget the word practice.

The awareness of presence make it a priority.

How many months to visit?

Sorry?

How many months?

Months ahead.

What if we get to a place where we are as aware of him as Jesus was?

It is not a matter of presence.

An awareness of his presence.

Because his presence will never leave you.

It is here permanently.

It is just an awareness that is missing.

An awareness of his presence.

When you suddenly feel angry, when you feel offended, when you feel this and that, awareness of his presence will change the way I react.

Make it a priority.

Make it a priority.

You know, every time you try to make something a priority, there has to be a starting point.

That starting point could be today.

And there has to be discipline.

It is a discipline.

But whenever we use the word discipline, we have to remember that there is another thing that has to kick in, which is self-discipline.

You have to self-discipline yourself to practice a discipline.

And every time you start self-disciplining, the flesh will resist.

This is why Jesus said in Mark chapter 14, verse 38, he says,

Mark 14:38

Guys, you are so eager, but your spirit is so eager, but my God, you behave like a lazy dog by the fire.

That is a message.

That the spirit is willing, the flesh is weak.

The way the message puts it is,

You are tremendously eager in your spirit, but lazing around like a dog next to a fire when it comes to actual work.

So just remember this thing.

The moment we try to make it a priority, four things have to come in.

A starting point. I will start today.

Next, it is a discipline.

Third, the moment something is a discipline, there is self-discipline required.

Fourth, the moment you think self-discipline needs to happen, the flesh will start resisting.

And once the flesh starts resisting, that is when you realize,

And then the other thing is, whenever there is a priority, there is a cost.

Whenever there is a priority, there is a cost.

And the cost is time spent.

The cost is time spent.

Guys, I know at one of the encounters, we talked about this.

We asked people to take seven days and spend one hour.

It was so hard.

Some of you did brilliantly.

Some of you spent three and a half hours in the middle of the night.

Others went 90 minutes.

Others took 60 minutes and broke it up into three 20s.

It doesn't matter.

Time spent is the cost you pay for this becoming a priority.

So awareness does not happen.

It is a priority.

So your life is busy.

So you have three children.

So you have messed up shifts at work.

It will not happen without time spent.

To be God-conscious is to be less conscious of myself.

To be God-conscious is to be less conscious of myself.

To be God-conscious is to be less conscious of myself.

To be God-conscious is to be less conscious of myself.

Whatever you're facing is only a direct result.

If what you're facing is beginning to overcome you,

it is only a direct result of that becoming more consuming in time,

more consuming of your energies, more consuming of your thinking

than this one person who can flip it around and it's gone.

Because the other thing presence gives you, according to Exodus 33,

which we won't touch today, is presence gives you rest.

And awareness of presence is directly proportional to the rest that you walk in.

Now you can see why you and I are in places of such unrest, such trouble,

so scared, so undone, because how do we manage, man?

Any questions?

Okay.

Next one.

If you want to practice awareness of presence,

then develop patterns.

And when I say patterns, I don't mean imaginations,

as in imagining Jesus next to you.

I'm not asking you to do that.

But develop ways of understanding that the presence of God is here.

Develop ways of understanding that the presence of God is here.

You can do your own thing.

I just came up with three simple things that have helped me,

and I'm hoping I can shed them so I don't need things.

Brandon, you want to put it up right now?

These are, I mean, go back.

Yeah.

This is something that really began helping me.

What if the ceiling was a balloon full of water

that is beginning to sag into this place?

What if the ceiling was a balloon full of water?

Imagine the ceiling suddenly turning into a blue balloon

or whatever color you want to pick of water,

where it is just pressing into the place.

That's how the kingdom is.

The kingdom of God is pressing into the earth.

I was in, when I was in Pune, that picture I showed with the three ladies,

this lady came up and her,

Anthony was there from Vernon and another guy from Bahrain were there

who saw this happening, besides the 30 or the 40 others who were there.

But this lady came up and her right side was, from here on up, was immobile

and could not move, and she came up and is asking for prayer.

And instead of praying a usual prayer, here's how I prayed.

I said, is your presence here, oh God?

Every question I asked, I knew the answer, but it was more a quest,

it was not a prayer, it was, is your presence here, oh God?

Are you here like a big blue balloon over this place,

full of water that can burst with one prick?

What is that prick? It could be the word of God,

or it could be the name of Jesus,

and it'll just splash and drench the person.

Jesus, do you want a king? Are you king-ing here? Are you here?

And as I'm saying it, I'm so aware that he is here,

he is over this woman and over this place, like the king that he is.

And he really wants to king, what does king-ing look like?

So my next question is, so Jesus, with this woman, what does king-ing look like?

What do you want to do? Do you want to make all things new?

Is that what you enjoy doing? What does it look like with this woman?

What do you want to do? And then all I can do is just weep because I know he is here.

I'm just saying Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, and the woman's hand starts moving.

I'm saying try the hand, try the hand, not laying hands, not praying, nothing.

Try the hand, and it goes up two inches and goes up a foot.

Then the last picture is with her arm held up high.

Nothing, no touch, no nothing.

Another woman comes up, she is from a Hindu background,

and they lay hands on her and you won't even get a chance to pray

because when you lay hands on her, it's a king who is present who begins to work,

and she begins to manifest and the demons flee.

And you're just weeping because you know you have done nothing.

This is what awaits us, guys. This is what awaits us.

This is what awaits each of us.

Suddenly, the weakest among us, as it says in Isaiah, the runt among us,

and you can choose if you want to be the runt, will be stronger than the strongest.

Why? Because it's Lucy with her little dagger, but Aslan is behind, and Aslan is always there.

Only are you aware of the presence of Aslan?

Am I aware of the presence of Aslan in this room?

Now I can actually accomplish nothing with my preaching,

but because of his presence, the hearts would shift, things will change, hope will arise,

expectancy will be triggered, and even the dullest of minds, newest of minds, not born again,

that enter a place full of tradition can be changed quickly

because of one person alone and he is king and he is here.

It was more a prayer of questions. Is this what you'll enjoy doing, oh God?

Sometimes it's not a balloon, sometimes it's something else.

You can decide how you want to picture it.

Sometimes it's a Matrix thing.

The Matrix movie was about this idea that everything was code.

Forget going, I'm just giving you different ideas.

I don't know how you want to picture the presence of God everywhere.

Or it could be the Truman Show, where it was this idea of a canopy that surrounded a town.

Everywhere people can easily become aware of the presence of God

because you go up to someone who doesn't know the Lord,

or you go up to someone who's seeking, or you go up to someone who's struggling,

and you now are able to use words and bring into them something that they are aware of.

May God not have to move sovereignly

because we don't live in a Judeo-Christian culture anymore, guys.

If someone out there on Moskrop and Boundary suddenly felt the presence of God

and went down on his knees and began weeping,

they would not know what to do with it because we don't live in a Judeo-Christian culture.

They will not go to the closest church. They do not know the name of Christ.

It is not like the good old days.

Everyone wants a good old revival where God's presence will come into Joyce

and people will give their lives to the Lord.

They don't know the Lord. It has to be different now.

Then they could run to a church.

It was Scotland. Missionaries came out of there 70 years ago.

It ain't the same now.

Now they'll go to temples. They'll go to mosques.

They'll go for some relief somewhere, but it's the same God who is Kinging.

Never forget He's highly active there seeding people, plowing ground up,

waiting for a May or a Marcus or an Aaron or a Jacob to turn up.

With what? With evangelism? Not always. It's a kind word.

With a kind word.

With taking someone in for a light.

With bread.

He is Kinging and He is here.

This church will grow in the awareness of presence.

This church will.

Jeremy once said this at one of the encounters.

He said, guys, remember, God is willing to do this and it's a very light thing.

Meaning, don't try to push your way in. It's not like He's saying, stay out, stay out.

He's saying, come in, come in. It's a very light thing.

That's the words Jeremy used. It's a very light thing and He is willing.

But the practice is the hard part because it involves discipline and requires self-discipline.

But we are here to encourage each other.

In Bahrain, we were in a restaurant after I had finished preaching on this.

We were in a restaurant. There were about 20, 25 of us and we were eating.

In the middle of the eating, I suddenly stopped and said, guys, do you realize for the last half an hour we've been chatting,

we're not aware of His presence.

And we went back to chatting, but we went back to chatting with an awareness of His presence.

And you know what it does? It changes all conversations.

It doesn't make the conversation, hallelujah, the pastry is good.

No, you don't go like that.

You still make fun of the pastry and you make fun of the person sitting next to you.

But you're so aware of presence.

This does not take away from the joy of living.

If His presence sours us, then we do not know the nature of the presence.

Here's how Psalm 16 verse 11 puts it.

Psalms 16:11

In His presence is fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore.

That includes pastries.

Good ones at least.

In His presence is fullness of joy.

Fullness of joy.

This is why it was so important.

Oh God, please Lord, please show fullness of joy through this package.

Let's just go over one more and then we can end.

Next time we'll talk about two facets of presence.

One facet of presence is my experience of it.

There's much more to go, but today we won't deal with this.

Two facets of presence. One, my experience of it.

Two, God's expression of it.

We'll talk about that next time.

So that's for next time.

My experience of presence.

What do we mean when we say each of us can experience presence differently?

And this is why we can't uniformly say, this is what you must feel or this is what you must think.

Because if presence becomes something uniform,

because there will be people who in the presence of God will become highly quiet because they are in awe.

That song says it, you're God in heaven.

I'm here on earth.

How can I but keep my words few?

Jesus, I am so in love with you.

I changed the song.

I say, you're God in heaven.

Here I am on earth.

How can my words be few?

I've changed the song because in my thing,

given the personality God has given me,

in the presence I've got to speak, I've got to shout, I've got to scream.

But some people won't be that way. They're made that way.

You should say Emmanuel when he's in the presence of God.

But that's who Emmanuel is.

And I can't now force Emmanuel to behave like me.

Because what is my experience of?

Presence.

When we standardize presence, there's something wrong.

So not everybody needs to fall.

Not everybody needs to fall.

Not everybody needs to bow.

Not everybody needs to take a knee.

Sometimes the pastor may say take a knee, take a knee.

And then stand up after a while.

I take a knee, after a while it starts hurting, I get up.

Because pain doesn't necessarily add to my worship.

So just remember that.

And then the second part is God's experience, God's expression of it.

What does it look like sometimes when God expresses presence?

Sometimes he wants us to be aware of his presence.

But sometimes he makes an expression of it.

And the church has to be ready for it.

But the church has to be ready for it how?

To one, receive it and two, measure it against scripture and the nature of God.

Because when you don't, that's when you have weird manifestations.

So on one hand we should not control God's expression of presence.

If suddenly someone starts screaming,

we can talk to them later and say maybe don't scream for that long.

Because the spirit of the prophet is subject to the prophet.

But because a person screams we shouldn't suddenly jump and say,

that's not God.

No, that was God and that was how the person reacted.

But bring everything within order.

We can't control his presence.

We cannot accommodate his presence.

Always remember guys, we cannot control the expression of God's presence.

We cannot accommodate the expression of God's presence.

We can surrender to it.

And after surrendering to it we'll measure it against two things.

Scripture, nature of God, order.

Three things.

And as we do,

the church will be able to handle what God is going to do.

Any questions?

I have a question from a couple of things that you said.

Yeah, go ahead, go ahead.

We talked about discipline.

I mean, I know it's true because there is a big power in my house.

But my question is more on the line that if God is my Father,

I don't need discipline to talk to my great Father anymore.

Yeah, by discipline I don't mean discipline.

Discipline I mean like when you go, if you want to run a marathon,

you have to discipline yourself to practice.

I'm talking about discipline as a practice.

But with my dad here on the team,

because of the relationship that I have with him,

it doesn't feel like I need to discipline, right?

It's so natural.

Yeah, so let me change it to this way.

You and I have a relationship, right?

Why is it that you sometimes and I sometimes ask for time with each other

where we sit, we have a very deliberate time of...

Why is that necessary?

Because we have schedule.

No, I would like to say to you that it's not because of schedule,

because there's something that deliberately has to be dealt with.

Let's just assume it's an area in your life.

So schedule is partly true, bad example.

Wrong person to talk to also.

But there is this unceasing prayer that happens between fathers and sons,

fathers and daughters, which is what you're talking about.

But then there is this time that I need to set apart,

which for us is very difficult.

So in churches like this, the unceasing easy combo is what happens.

And yet there are times when, every day there are times when I need to go

beyond the easy father-son combo to worshiper God,

devotee deity, servant master, majesty vassal, creator created.

And that you cannot always find in the father-son combo.

Because...

Yeah, in marriages too, there'll be conversations,

there'll be easy getting along together,

and then there'll have to be times where you pause and say,

we need to deal with this.

And those are separate intense times.

And those times we don't have.

In traditional churches, those times are present.

In churches that are non-traditional like this, those times are absent.

So, yes, on one hand, the presence of God requires me to approach him as

father-son always.

But what about master-servant?

What about majesty and subject?

What about instructor and student?

What about worshiper and deity?

What about creator and created?

And that is where time set apart.

I'm not saying it doesn't include father-son,

but time set apart is so critical.

So what you're saying is your approach has to be different all the time?

Aren't it a different aspect?

No, it is a deliberate discipline set apart for us.

I have this as actually the same as you would do with your earthly father

with your father because he would discipline you.

No, I'm not talking about discipline like this.

Oh, his question.

Yeah.

Yeah, so it's a discipline.

Like there were times when I would...

Let me just take off from what Marcus said.

There were times when my dad and I would have a great conversation.

And then he would say, I want to teach you math.

A whole different thing, man.

He was still my dad, still loving.

But as soon as math came in, he was still father, but I was not son anymore.

Because it was like this was a whole different thing.

And the math required time.

The math required time.

But you would still freely approach him the next second if you needed to.

Yeah, I would...

It usually would end up in crying and me go back to son and father.

So it's the same thing that God did.

With God too, but time needs to be set apart for it.

And that is the luxury we do not afford.

I mean, I know I've said this before.

I would go for walks with my dad and it wasn't a problem.

And then when he realized I was walking, dragging my feet...

This is how I used to walk.

They could hear me coming about a mile away.

So went from great walks to my dad with...

Today we are going out and we are going to walk for two kilometers.

But during the two kilometers, you will walk like this.

I don't want you to drag your feet.

And imagine me walking like this.

You know how much I hate walking.

And then walk like this for two kilometers.

Why? Now it was discipline time.

And I hated it.

But thank God, he would take me out for a month and a half.

He took me out till I learned how to walk without dragging my feet.

Now I don't drag my feet.

Otherwise, he would have heard me when I'm at Joy Station.

Hey, Jacob's coming.

Last one.

Was it only one question or were there more questions?

Okay.

We just want to escape from here.

Yeah.

The last one if you want to practice an awareness...

of presence.

Not the last one, the last one for today.

Is...

Holy.

So, His presence is always there.

But one of the reasons we...

and now I'm talking about us.

One of the reasons we find it so hard to be aware of His presence is just because His...

Even if His presence were here, I will not be sensitive to His presence

if holy is not something I see Him as.

And holy is not something I want to be.

So the King who is here right now...

is holy.

I'm talking about holy where Psalm 24 and Psalm 15 come together.

Where this is a holy where...

is my heart pure?

Is my heart sincere?

Not has God made my heart pure, has God made my heart sincere?

He's made me holy.

But is my heart pure?

Is my heart sincere?

Are my words without deceit?

Do I slander?

Do I speak evil?

Do I give room for rumors?

Are my words and my intents and my ways manipulative?

Are there lies?

Small lies.

Is there intent of harm towards anybody?

Not practice.

Is there malice?

Is there anger?

Is there anger?

Am I proud?

Do I lift my soul up to anything that is vain as in...

Do I derive anything from it that I should not, should only derive from God?

Is anything in me?

Am I offended easily?

Do I envy?

Why is this important?

Because it says that who can ascend the hill of the Lord...

except he who has clean hands and a pure heart.

This became a problem after Stone Age.

So we come back to the hotel and I suddenly realized that...

I give myself license.

I give myself license in this.

My heart is not pure.

Titus puts it this way in the book of... in the message it says...

If your heart is pure inside Jacob...

everything you see in the world outside will also become pure.

It's not that you will not be aware of evil but...

A pure heart will allow you to look around and see everything externally pure too.

My heart is not pure.

I wrote down.

What bothered me is 58 years old, 34 years as a Christian...

I give myself the license to continue like this.

Because I'm doing much better than most Christians in terms of purity.

But I do not desire holy like he is.

And it wrecked me.

My heart is not pure.

My speech has deceit in it.

I practice deceit.

I lie.

I exaggerate.

I speak half truths.

My heart is not sincere.

It's not even sincere towards you.

So many times it's insincere towards you.

I know you've heard me say this many times but...

The word sinseer means without wax.

Where there's nothing put on what I'm saying that prevents you from seeing the cracks.

My heart is not sincere.

If it's not sincere towards you then how is it with the rest of the world?

Because you're supposed to be dearer to me than most others.

I practice deceit.

There is anger.

As Christians we begin to pretend that anger doesn't exist.

We know how to hide it.

But there is anger.

There's pride.

It's my pride that offends me.

The most important person in my life is not you, not Christ.

It's me.

Do I speak ill of people?

Yes, I do.

Am I okay with gossip?

Yes, I like listening to gossip.

Are my words sometimes harmful, slanderous of others?

Yes, particularly if they've done me harm.

Do I sometimes find my strength from or find my pride in things that are not sourced from God?

Yes.

How do you cup holy water?

How do you carry holy fire in these hands if these hands are not clean and if this heart is not pure?

How are we going to do this?

How long do we pray for something that we can't hold?

What does it take to be now in the presence of He who is King and is here and is holy?

And then what if it's not clean?

What if it's not pure?

What if it's not pure?

And then what if it's not about repentance?

Just about this other word in the Bible that is sometimes used called penitence, which is you are right, O God.

You are right.

In this area, as you point this and this, you are right.

What if we started there?

What if we started there right now?

Can you just close your eyes?

And you say, you are here and you are holy.

You are here and you are holy.

And I afford myself the luxury.

I give myself the license to not be you.

That's the standard that is required for holy fire.

I'm sorry that I do not want to be like you.

So can you take your nail-scarred hands and begin to show me?

Two, three, four.

I'm not going to repent of them.

I'm not going to surrender.

I'm just going to say you are right.

That's all I want to say today.

You are right, Holy One.

Jesus, you are here.

Holy, you are here.

You are not asking for anything.

You are not saying surrender.

You are not saying repent.

You are just saying, can I show you?

Can I show you?

Can I show you the ones you haven't forgiven?

Can I show you?

Can I show you?

As you do, Father, we just go down on our knees in our own different ways.

Some real, some not.

As in real knees or sometimes not.

It doesn't matter.

Can I show you?

Guys, I'm not asking you to go down on your knees.

It's up to you.

I'm just, I'm just, it's just, can I show you?

Can I show you?

Can I have it?

I say, please, Jesus, please, can I have it?

Can I have it?

Can I have it?

Can I show you your pride?

Your fear, your hurt.

Holy.

Holy.

Holy.

Holy.

Holy.

Holy.

Holy.

Holy.

Jesus.

Father, you can have it, but you'll have to exchange.

I'm not able to love.

I'm not able to do things like you do.

Need an exchange.

That's a flesh for a heart of stone.

The weight of your presence, it is a holy presence.

Holy.

Holy.

Holy.

And I am changed in the presence of a holy God.

I cry, holy, holy, holy God, how awesome is your race.

I cry, holy, holy, holy God, how majestic is your reign.

I am changed in the presence of a holy God. I cry, holy, holy, holy God, how awesome is your race.

I cry, holy, holy, holy God, how majestic is your reign.

And I am changed in the presence of a holy God.

Sing to the one who is here, not the one in heaven. Sing to the one who is here.

Holy, holy, holy God, how awesome is your name.

Holy, holy, holy God, how majestic is your reign.

We are changed. We are changed in your presence, oh holy God.

We are changed in your presence, oh holy God.

Holy, holy, holy God, how awesome is your name.

We are directly singing to him.

Holy, holy, holy God, how awesome is your name.

Holy, holy, holy God, how majestic is your reign.

And we are changed in your presence, in your presence, oh holy God.

We are changed in your presence, oh holy God.

We are changed, we are changed in your presence, oh holy God.

So when we leave today, when we are going up and down, remember these things we spoke about, eh?

Awareness of his presence.

Awareness of his presence by practicing it as a priority, by practicing it knowing his intent.

As in, if his presence is here, what is his intent?

His intent is to make all things new.

Three, practicing it with a pattern in mind.

Awareness, whatever it be, blue balloon, whatever helps you remember an awareness.

I want to preach out of his awareness.

When I talk to you, I want to talk out of his awareness.

When I shake your hands, I want to shake hands out of his awareness.

When I bless you, I want to bless you out of his awareness.

When we worship, I want to worship out of his awareness.

I want to be able to get to a place where my heart is always sincere towards you.

That I'll never say anything insincere to you.

Your heart is pure.

You know the beautiful thing about a heart that is pure is it will no longer struggle with evil in the world,

but it will only be aware of the evil in the world.

It will no longer struggle with evil in the world.

Blessed are the people who see God in everything.

Not as in everything is godly.

No, no, no.

They'll see God's work in everything and you stop struggling with evil.

It's almost back forwarding or flashbacking to Eden before the apple was eaten.

There's still good and evil, but it's no longer a struggle for you.

And that I would never, ever slander or gossip.

I was talking about two people.

Both were from Vancouver.

I was in Bahrain.

I was talking about two people.

Both were from Vancouver.

And I was talking to someone in Bahrain about both of them.

Neither of them are here.

And I was talking and I realized two things.

One, with one of them I had malice in my heart because of something that they had done to me.

And to the other, there was hurt in my heart.

And so in one case I was speaking out of hurt and the other case out of malice.

And yet if you heard the words I said, you would not suspect malice or hurt.

Because everything I was saying was so Christian.

I remember going back to the room, hotel room immediately and saying,

Father, there was malice there and there was hurt there.

Can you free me from this?

No malice, no hurt.

Pardon?

Sometimes that is the hardest deceitful above all things because it comes out so well.

But no malice, no hurt.

And then practicing deceit.

Little lies.

Little lies.

Because of fear, because of anger, because of dislike.

Little lies.

What if this entire church began to shut this?

What if you didn't take offense?

What if you were not manipulative?

What if there was no martyr complex amongst any of us?

Ah, beautifully.

And now, this fire that we've been longing for, talking about for two years,

have we asking God to break forth?

It'll come, man, and you will cup it and you will take it.

You set other things on fire.

Ignite. Ignite.

I'm just going to ask you to stay for one more song and we leave after that.

This might become our answer.

Can you pull up Is He Worthy?

We've got six minutes left.

Six? Is it that long, this song?

No.

Okay.

I want to play the full answer.

Okay.

Do you feel the world is broken?

We do.

Do you feel the shadows deep in?

We do.

Do you know that all the dark won't stop the light from shining through?

We do.

Do you wish that you could see it all made new?

We do.

It's all creation.

It's all creation.

Is a new creation coming?

Is the glory of the Lord to be the light within our midst?

It is.

Is the star of this.

It is.

Is anyone worthy?

Is anyone whole?

Is anyone else worthy?

Is anyone else worthy?

Is anyone whole?

Is anyone able to break the seal and open the scroll?

The lion of Judah who conquered the grave.

He has saved his root and the lamb who died to ransom the slave.

Is he worthy?

Is he worthy?

Of a blessing and honor and glory?

Is he worthy of this?

He is.

Does the Father truly love?

Does the Father truly love us?

He does.

Does the Spirit move among us?

He does.

And if Jesus our Messiah holds forever those he loves?

He does.

Does our God intend to live again with us?

He does.

Is anyone holy?

Is anyone holy?

Is anyone whole?

Is anyone able to break the seal and open the scroll?

The lion of Judah who conquered the grave.

He has saved his root and the lamb of God who roams in the slave.

Is he holy?

Is he holy?

Is he holy?

Of a blessing and honor and glory?

Is he holy?

Oh God, he is.

Is he holy?

Is he worthy of honor and glory?

Is he worthy of this?

So Jesus as a church, we come and lay our lives on the altar.

As just a reasonable worship.

We bind our feet, we bind our hands.

We come and lay down on the altar.

Our bodies, instruments of holiness.

This week enable us.

You said through Jeremy that this is light, this is something you're willing to give.

Can this week be the most amazing week in the life of this church?

An awareness of the presence of God at work while driving amongst our friends.

Till we will say with that man in that village that to not know the awareness of the presence of God is subnormal.

That our cars, our homes, our workplaces will suddenly be filled with the weight of glory.

The weight of presence.

Not necessarily in stillness and quietness, in the middle of noise, honking, tiredness, children, the weight of presence.

Can you make these hands clean and this heart pure this week so that it may carry consuming fire?

Change the world to ordinary people.

Holiness makes the veil of flesh thin so that Christ may show.

Jesus, please, please.

You've been preparing us for this.

We are willing.

We think we are ready.

Please.

Let someone in this congregation look up and say, I see the lion and the lamb seated on the throne.

And I see much power there.

Let that power loose, oh God.

Let it drench, let it saturate, let the blue balloon full of water burst.

Let it be filled with the kingdom of the king and the kingdom begin to king through us.

Let it spread, let the aroma of Yahweh fill the earth again with fragrance.

Let there be favor, let there be jubilee for others, oh God.

You take care of us. The goodness of God has taken care of us.

Now we want us to take care of your, your intent here on earth.

What's your intent? We won't forget as we leave now.

Behold, I have come to make all things new.

Behold, we go out now to make all things new with you.

Thank you, spirit of God, in Jesus' name, Amen.

Bless you guys.

Thank you.