Getting-Personal-with-God

Father, you are so good.

You are a good, good Father.

Just that you have adopted us, chosen us.

While we were yet sinners, you gave your Son to die for us.

You've withheld nothing.

You have poured out your whole self.

You've poured into us your Holy Spirit.

How marvelous is this?

We just praise you and we thank you.

And we know that you are this morning wanting to encourage your people.

You are the God of eternal encouragement.

You are always looking to strengthen and encourage everyone whose heart is true to you.

So we thank you what you're going to do this morning.

We praise you.

Amen.

Thanks, Jane and crew, for leading worship.

The Bergmans, whenever they come back from visiting here, they always talk about,

the worship is so awesome at Acts 29.

We just love it.

And we're singing, mighty to save.

And I all of a sudden get whisked back into this memory that I had of the very first time I went on a trip with Jacob to Africa.

And we're sitting in in Mushiri's vehicle driving through the streets of Kenya.

And the three of us are belting out, mighty to save, out the windows of the car.

And I just remember that moment.

It was just so awesome.

So I was kind of entering that when we were singing together.

I, the Lord wants to.

Exhort us today with something that most of us already know.

But he he does this in his word all the time.

Right. In first John two, he says, I'm not writing you an old command.

I'm writing you a new command.

But I am writing you a new command.

And I mean, I am writing you an old command.

That was with you before.

And I'm speaking again fresh.

And this is what he's doing.

He's inviting us to get personal with him.

He's a personal God.

We've heard that it's almost cliche.

Christianity is not a religion.

It's a relationship.

You've heard that line.

It's not a religion.

It's a relationship.

And you can say it so frequently that you actually become religious in saying it.

And you can start to forget about this.

The fact that our God is a personal God.

And his desire is to have personal relationship with each and every one of us.

I was five years old.

It was Christmas time.

I had been given the castle Lego set as a little boy.

And I was so excited.

And I ripped open all of the bags of Lego pieces and dumped them on the floor.

You're not supposed to do that.

You're supposed to take it a step at a time with the instructions.

But I was just so excited.

And I dumped these Lego pieces all over the floor.

And I start working on this.

And I got my green plate.

And I'm going to do the walls.

And there's this piece.

Ironically, it's the cornerstone.

I know that now.

I didn't know it then.

But it was this tall corner pillar thing that goes in the first row.

Do you think I could find that piece?

Could not find that piece.

It's all yellow.

It's a gold castle.

And I'm going through this whole thing.

And I'm just getting flustered because I want to build this thing so much.

And I'm five years old.

And after searching and searching and searching and searching, and I couldn't find it,

I close my eyes and I say, Jesus, if you're real, help me find my Lego.

Little kid crying out to God.

And I open my eyes.

And it's like there was no other piece.

It's like all the pieces had been pushed away from this one cornerstone piece.

And it's right there.

And that memory has stuck with me my whole life that God is a personal God.

Who we cry out to him.

And he never fails.

When you cry to him from the depths of your being, whatever space you're in,

he answers and he responds very personal.

This is so important for us to know, to be reminded of, because we live in a world where

as we're going out and encountering people, as we're going out and sharing the gospel,

you will come into it more and more and more.

People in our culture and in multicultural, people talking more and more about the universe.

Have you heard that?

People talking more and more about an impersonal force or even a higher power.

And when I have these encounters with people and I'm building relationships with people

and I'm talking with somebody in the gym and they're saying, yeah, like, I just had this

impression this morning and I'm listening to the person and I know it has on it the

sound of my father's voice and the person is attributing it to the universe.

And I tell the person, the universe doesn't give a rip about you.

Because the universe is not a person.

And I don't say that to diss them.

I then speak of the father who spoke that word to them because he knows them.

He has every single hair numbered on their head.

He's a personal God.

And he wants to meet us where we are at personally.

You look story after story after story in scripture and you see this.

You see Nathaniel sitting under the tree, disillusioned.

Somebody comes running up to him.

We found the Messiah.

Come, we're pretty sure it's the Messiah.

You got to come.

And he's just sitting there.

He's like, can anything good come out of Nazareth?

It's like, you know, he's just disillusioned.

And then when he meets Jesus, Jesus tells him, I saw you when you were sitting under

the tree.

What?

He is a personal God.

I saw you.

You're going to see even greater things than this.

But fast forward a couple chapters, three chapters, and you get Jesus encountering the

woman at the well.

And he says to her, go get your husband.

She says, I don't have a husband.

And Jesus says to her, yeah, you don't have a husband.

You've had five husbands and the man you're living with now is not your husband.

What you've said is true.

And she's like, what?

How do you know me that personally?

He's a personal God.

And he actually says in that passage, he's dialoguing with this woman who becomes, in

the Gospel of John, the very first evangelist.

Do you know this?

In the Gospel of John, the very first person to go out and tell people about Jesus is this

Samaritan woman.

And she comes running into the town and she says, he told me everything I ever did.

Like he just knew me.

He just, the guy just knew me.

And that word, that spoken word, come and see, because this guy knows me personally

and we've never met before.

She speaks that word into the Samaritan village and they're all intrigued by it, right?

They come running out and they want him to stay and he actually stays in this Samaritan

village where he shouldn't have been, but God sent him there.

And he stays there for three days and at the end of it, they say, we no longer believe

just because of what you said.

We believe, now we know.

We know for ourselves.

Why?

Because we have personally met and we have personally heard this Jesus that you told

us about.

This is one of the things that separates.

It separates Christianity.

Because God's a personal God who is all about a personal relationship.

And it's tragic actually.

It's tragic when Christian movements have put together the principles of the kingdom

And then all they go out with to speak the gospel is principles of the kingdom.

You know what I'm talking about?

Like God never ever ever intended us to come to Christ simply on the basis of the four

spiritual laws.

Now God in his grace has used powerfully the four spiritual laws at times to meet people

personally.

But his desire is not that we put together this sheet or this tract or this thing and

we come and we give it.

His desire throughout scripture is that those who have a personal encounter with Jesus go

and tell everybody and they can't stop telling everybody this is what's happened to me.

I mean have you ever wondered why it is when you read in the gospels you're reading and

Jesus does this powerful miracle and he says don't tell anybody.

Have you seen that?

What?

Others can't figure it out.

If you want to become popular you've got to make an appearance.

And they're telling him this and Jesus is going around doing miracles and he's saying

shh don't tell anybody.

Shhh don't tell anybody.

Don't tell anybody.

And you get to Mark chapter 5 and he's been telling people don't tell anybody.

Mark 5 · chapter mention

You get to Mark chapter 5 he encounters somebody who has an entire legion of demons inside

Mark 5 · chapter mention

of him.

And Jesus frees this man who was living among the tombs who was in complete bondage and

Jesus with a word delivers this man and the next scene we see is this man who had been

completely demonized is sitting in his right mind fully clothed and he's sitting with

Jesus there and what does he say?

It says he pleaded with Jesus that he might remain with him.

This guy's mindset is I just want to be with you Jesus and for the first time in the gospels

he says I want you to go and tell all that the Lord has done for you.

Why does he say that?

Because here is a guy who the only thing that he wants is to be with Jesus.

Derek preached several weeks ago about making disciples you recall?

Go back and listen to it again.

He gives this whole list of everything that a disciple is and if we're going to make disciples

what you know these are the important things and I was listening to it for a second time

and that point jumped out of me in Mark 3 he called these who would be with him and

sent out with him.

Personal relationship many of you many of you are in this church because God met you

personally.

Many of you are in this church because God spoke through Jacob or through somebody else

here a very personal prophetic word where this prophetic spoke into your spirit and

something came alive inside of you and you were like this is really real.

Is that true?

I remember the first time I came to an NAB conference I was being asked to be the pastor

of one of the churches in the NAB conference and they sent me to this conference to see

what the NAB was all about and I went to a lunch meeting and Jacob was the guest speaker

and here's little me with my bachelor's degree from Briar Crest and my master's degree from

regent and I'm sitting there at this pastors conference and I'm listening to Jacob for

the first time and I'm thinking he knows the living God.

He knows the living God.

He knows God in a personal way that I want to know God.

I must know him personally like Jacob knows him and I said he's going to be the one to

introduce me to the living God and so I started bugging Jacob all the time.

I'm pastoring and I'm running into problems and I'm calling him help me and he's talking

and the first time that I went on a ride I had to go to another conference and I needed

a ride and Bob Kron put me in the same car with Jacob and we went and did three hours

together and that was the first time we actually got to talk.

I hadn't really talked with him prior to that and for me and for my life that three hours

in that vehicle was more important to my life than my master's degree because I was

getting introduced and I was meeting not just Jacob I was meeting the living God.

Like I didn't know I had never been taught that you could hear God.

That I heard God?

Yeah, but it never even really registered really in a way that actually stuck right

because I never grew up in a church that taught that you can hear God.

In fact many churches will say you can't hear God you can only read the word and the word

itself says you can hear God.

Go figure right?

So I had heard God personally before but it didn't register right?

I remember after high school I moved to Saskatoon and it was Thanksgiving weekend 1994 and my

roommates had all gone back home we'd all grown up in the same church and I was staying

there and I was invited to go to a party that weekend and I knew exactly what kind of party

that would be and my Mennonite upbringing would not be approving of me going to that

kind of party.

And I'm sitting on my bed and I got this invitation to go to this party and I'm thinking to myself

nobody will know.

Like all my roommates have gone back home to our hometown nobody's going to know.

That was a line being spoken I wonder where the source of that came from.

Nobody's going to know you can go nobody will know.

In that moment something rose up inside of me that said no you are my God not just my

parents God you are my God and in that moment the spirit of God descended in the room and

it was like literally like I was being hugged and held by the spirit of the living God and

there was something that happened there I would call it the baptism of the Holy Spirit

where from that moment literally all I wanted to do was read the word of God all I wanted

to do was go to church and any church in the city that was worshipping that was singing

I just if there was a worship night I was there and I was just singing my heart out

to this God that I had met.

And all of a sudden my colleagues at work that I loathed because they were so foul mouthed

and debaucherous and I had grown up in this legalistic culture that made me just go ugh

but the spirit of God had grabbed a hold of me and now all of a sudden I just love my

coworkers and not only that I like them and it was the most bizarre thing and one day

I'm sitting at home reading because I'm just voraciously reading and I'm reading the sermon

on the mountain and it's and Jesus says right there anyone if anyone comes and asks you

for money just give without expecting anything in return and I read those words and as I

read those words like just seconds later the doorbell rings and it's this 40 some year

old guy who was a driver at the Pizza Hut where I worked and he came in and he said

I need $350.

All I had in my account was just pennies or just dollars past the $350 and I needed it

for the rent the next week.

And rationally I should have said no but the spirit of God said what did I just speak to

you in my word?

And I tell this guy come here come here I want you to see what I just read this is in

the Bible the God that I worship just spoke this to my heart before you walked in the

door and so I'm not giving you the money I am but it's him who's giving you the money

and this guy was just like so he did pay it back a week later when I didn't demand that

he paid it back but he paid it back a week later because this is the living God we're

talking about.

But here's the thing you have these experiences you have these encounters along the way and

then you're reading the word and you see it's real it's there all of a sudden the thing

that you couldn't see in the word before you now can see and you see it all over the place

and it becomes a principle and you start to see there's a principle that here is a living

God who speaks and acts the same way that he did in the Bible and then you teach it

as a principle you teach hearing God and did you know that hearing which is intended by

its very nature to be very very personal all of a sudden hearing becomes a principle and

you can start teaching about hearing and you can start hearing and doing it as a principle

and it starts to lose the personalness of it do you know what I mean?

And so God comes to refresh and he comes to say you've heard me speak and you've even

believed it and you've even taught it but I want you to know I'm a personal God and I want you

to hear me afresh.

Jesus says of the Pharisees do what they say but don't do what they do.

He said do what they say because they're teaching the principles they're teaching the law of Moses

they're teaching this stuff so you need to do what they say but do not do what they do.

Why? He says don't do what they do because they'll teach you all the principles but there's

this thing called the kingdom and there's a door and you have to open the door the door opens and

you go through and you enter life in the kingdom and it's life in abundance and it's living God

kind of life that fills you from the inside out to overflowing and he says these guys will teach

you all the principles but they don't actually open the door and let you in they don't even go in

themselves.

And what God would say of Jacob your house church leaders what God would want to say is don't just

do what they say do what they do because they enter they enter Jacob enters.

And there's a knowing of God that happens where you know the principles and they're right and they

are true principles and then there's a knowing of God that the Father deeply desires for us where

it's his heart is wide open and your heart gets open wide and there's this personal personal

meeting it's like in John four at that woman on the well encounter he says believe me woman an hour

is coming when you'll worship the Father neither on this mountain in Samaria nor in Jerusalem but

an hour is coming and it's now here when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit

and in truth yes the Father wants such people to worship him in the message it says this that's

the kind of people the Father is out there looking for those who are simply and honestly themselves

before him in worship that's the kind of people the Father's out there looking for those who are

simply and honestly themselves simply and honestly themselves

simply and honestly themselves if you're having troubles with this go into the Psalms start

reading in the Psalms until what is on the page is echoing what is in your heart and then say it

out loud to God you know there's 70 percent of the Psalms are yelling at the heavens are sad

laments are angry at come on where are you

and what does God say of David he's a man after my heart how do you become a man after his heart

you open up your heart and you say to God here I am and this is what I'm struggling with and you

tell him and he meets you right there but if we think oh it's it's not right it's not appropriate

for us to talk to God that way we start to backpedal and all of a sudden there's this gap

and the Father's just saying come I already know you I already know what's going on inside

will you just come express it say it

I was teaching at Briar Crest Bible College and it had been eight years of us being married and

not having children not being able to have children once we started it was difficult and

we had two miscarriages and and then we were diagnosed with a third miscarriage and

like my my life was just compartmentalized I'm I was leading a house church I was a Bible College

professor over here and I'm studying his word and I'm going into the classroom and I'm teaching

people about God and meanwhile over in this compartment I am angry at him because I believed

I believed at that time that he was the one responsible for our babies dying

and I'm like tight-fisted towards him over here and over here I'm teaching others about the God

of the Bible and then we've I fly out to teach on Vancouver Island this course for five days in a

row eight hour days and Penny was in the guest house having this miscarriage and all the symptoms

that come with it and my students who were younger than me one day they say how come how come Penny

isn't how come your wife doesn't want to come to class and meet us and I just kind of lose it

because I was just just holding on by a thread and I tell them what's happened well we've had two

miscarriages and this is the third miscarriage we've had or that the doctor has said we're in

the middle of a third miscarriage here and if she doesn't pass the fetus this weekend then we have

to go back on and have a DNC again and these these kids just said no no sit down and they sat their

professor down in the chair and they surrounded me and they began to pray over me over us prayers

that I had not yet heard I had not met Jacob at this time prayers that I had not yet heard and they

begin commanding life commanding resurrection life to this baby and they're praying with faith

that was just a theory to me not it wasn't even on my radar I didn't even think you could actually

talk to God like that and these kids were praying like this and I leave that prayer room they said

go back now and be with your wife in the guest house and I'm walking back through the woods

and I and I'm just overwhelmed and I fall to my knees and I um I just cry out in repentance I say

I've been teaching about you at a Bible college I've been telling everybody that you're the God

of resurrection and I actually haven't known you that way or even believed that you are and I just

I just said this I haven't even believed in you and in that moment

and

it was just so evident that he wasn't angry with me he just said her name is hope

like the living God spoke and said he bypassed my whole confession you know it's kind of like

the prodigal son who's got the whole speech worked out and he's running back to the father

and the father just shuts him right up and says get in here and he says her name is hope and I

go back to the guest house and I say I don't even still don't have the faith yet and I say to Penny

no matter what happens the baby's name is hope

and we fly back and we go and we ask for another ultrasound and whoa

the baby's alive and now I have a 16 year old daughter named hope and four others that came after her

and four others that came after her

but you have these moments of encounter

where you know he's really real and he's personal but he he literally doesn't want us to live

from encounter to encounter he literally wants us to live every day hearing him every day knowing

his presence with us every single day he's so so personal if time was given

with an open mic in this group to the personal stories where God personally spoke where God

personally answered we would we'd be sitting here for a long time as the stories just came and came

and came and came and he's he's saying he's saying if if you were introduced to me by by principles

I want you to know me personally and if you've been going from encounter

to encounter with big gaps in between I want you to know me personally

Miguel and sorry your wife's name again Danny

what kind of marriage would it be if Danny only talked to you once a month

that'd be sad eh

such a personal God when you're when you're when Danny is is trying to learn English

I have such compassion for people trying to learn another language you can feel so alone

so alone you're always on you're trying to always be processing and it can you can feel so alone

you know but the but the personal connection that she's she would be able to have with Miguel

by speaking the same language can you imagine that that personal connection by speaking the

same language you want to know how personal our God is book of acts we're reading it in the

group with Chad it comes to Peter going to Cornelius's place

and Cornelius is a Gentile and as Peter is preaching they start speaking in tongues

I've read this passage over and over and over my whole life like I've read it and this time when

we're doing that as a group with Chad on the new meeting I'm reading this passage and all of a

sudden the Holy Spirit opens my eyes to see that the language that these Gentiles were speaking

was Hebrew when you read it now you'll see it the language they were speaking was Jewish

think about that that God's wanting to include these Gentiles personally into the kingdom so he

has them speak in tongues what tongue it's it's a tongue that the Jews who are with Peter understand

and they go huh they're talking my language they're one of us isn't that incredible that God in his

personal nature would know how deeply language how important language is for personal relationship

this is why he does this with us he speaks your language everybody has a different love language

but there's times when the father speaks your love language and you know that you know that you know

that was God there's no other and I don't even need to argue with anybody that was the living God talking to me

and what do we do we come up with apologetics and we try to argue people into the kingdom

and we try to argue people into the kingdom

and all you're going to can do if you can if you can convince them all you're going to do is

convince their mind and Paul says I'm not going to use worldly philosophy to convince people

because then your faith is based in the wisdom of men and it is going to falter but if I come

with the power of God and he speaks with power to you right where you're at then your trust is

going to be in God and not in the wisdom of man and what do we do we do apologetics where we argue

and we try to convince people's minds the word apologetics comes from a Greek word apologia in

the New Testament you go and you look it up this blew me away you look it up in the New Testament

every time it appears it has nothing to do with arguing systematically to try to get somebody to

believe you Paul stands up in the court and this is his apologetic so I'm walking down the road

to Damascus and all of a sudden this light just and I meet the living resurrected Jesus and he

changed my life and I've been on a totally different course and that's his apologetic

how can you argue with that

and this is what God wants for because he doesn't want us arguing people into the kingdom he wants

us released to go to the book of acts early on you're going to go and you're going to

proclaim what you have seen and heard him do for you personally

right Marcus

so personal

one of my favorite stories of how personal he is how much time do we got Jillian when's the

I'm already past

there's a there's a I won't take a lot

there's a I won't take a lot

there's this couple who does ministry in Vernon such a blessing

and our church they're not a part of our church but we wanted to honor what they do in our city

and together as a church we were like we want to honor this couple and so we wanted to give them a

Christmas basket and you can buy big Christmas baskets at Costco and we thought no we don't want

to do that we want to make it personal we don't want so we want to go and buy it ourselves

so we took and we went we had a budget and we had this basket and we started going through the store

and just filling up the basket with whatever we felt we were supposed to put in there and one of

the things we felt we were supposed to put in there was some really nice coffee and some pottery

mugs I have a thing with pottery mugs so we wanted to put it in a pair of pottery mugs and we wanted

to put some nice cheese and nice gloves could be really good right so I I want to get the pottery

mugs from my my favorite potter in Vernon she's an older lady who's been doing it for years and I

call her up I say can I come to your studio and um and so she takes me into her garage and she's

just got shelves and shelves of old like stuff that she's like go through it she's like just be

warned some of it's like 30 years old and I'm rooting through all these pottery mugs that are

because I'm not using buying a whole set I'm just getting two of them and I get two of these mugs

put in the basket we send it off to the people I get an email back of thanks and they say we don't

even feel like this is a gift from you or from your church we feel like this was a gift from God

because everything in the basket is the stuff that we love to get and here's the kicker

when we got married 23 25 years ago we were given a set of pottery mugs

and two of them broke

and the mugs you gave us are the replacement the exact replacements

you just think about the nature of God and how personal he wants to be with us

he wants to be with us

I bought a car yesterday

and we try to do everything by hearing

I come a few weeks ago and was waiting outside Evan's apartment Jacob's apartment for a meeting

with Jacob and I had about 20 minutes so I just went walking through the dealership

and I stumbled upon this car in the dealership and the the budget like it's the only car in the

whole dealership that's within our budget and it's beautiful and nice and I'm like

this would be an awesome car but the time crunch and everything I couldn't make it happen and

Penny and I decided no we're not we're not going to and I had met the guy and chatted with the guy

and started connecting with him not just as the guy who's going to sell me the car but as a person

that God has his eye on this person

and began asking him his story and hearing his story and hearing and realizing wow God you want

to connect with this person but I had to run and we weren't going to buy the car and Penny said

God has always taken care of us in the area of vehicles and and Eric if we're supposed to have

that car go to the dealership and ask him to buy it and he said yes we're going to do that

if we're supposed to have that car God will make it work and I'm thinking to myself this car is

gone tomorrow and that car was gone tomorrow and I told him I said I told the guy if it if it's

supposed to work it'll happen and he's like good good good this is going to be gone tomorrow

and then we're we sell our car in Vernon and we're driving I'm driving with hope and

we've borrowed a vehicle and hope says to me one day dad like when are we going to get a car

what how are we going to get a car

she asked that question we stop at a stop sign and the car in front of me on the license plate

has the first name the name of the sales guy

and I said to her that's crazy she's like what dad that's the name of the sales guy that I had

this connection with over that other car I think we're supposed to buy from him

I tell Penny this story and this is just a few days ago here and I'm supposed to come and we

don't have a car for me to get here and I decide Penny says well just look on the internet and see

if that dealership has any cars that'll work and I said I've been looking and there's nothing

it goes look again and I look again and there's a car that's identical identical to the car I had

been driving three weeks earlier I buy a one-way ticket in faith that I'm going to get that car

when I come I show up I go to the dealership the guy remembers me he's like I remember you

he's like I remember you and and I say I want to get this car it looks identical to the one

that you sold three weeks ago he goes it's actually the same car

and he said that uh the person just couldn't get their financing so they had to they pulled it off

while they were just trying to sort out the three weeks go by and then they have to post it again at

a lower price now

for me it still wasn't about the car and it's still not about the car it's about the guy and I'm going

that morning when I go to pick up the car yesterday morning I'm going to pick up the car

but before I'm sitting and I'm just seeking the Lord and I'm asking father tell me because we can

feel pressure to share the gospel and God doesn't want us to feel pressure anytime you feel pressure

you're operating out of a performance mindset

my friend Caleb just said that to me a few weeks ago and I was like whoa that's so good

should have been mine anytime you feel pressure you're operating out of a performance mindset

so I just said God what do you want me to know about going to the dealership to get this car

and takes me to Psalm 34 verse 2 and it says just boast in the works of God and the humble ones will

Psalms 34:2

hear it interesting verse boast in the works of God and the humble ones will hear it

and what do I do I walk into that dealership and I just say we prayed for a car and my wife said if

God wants us to get that car he'll make a way for it to happen and I tell the guy I saw your name on

a license plate and I bought a plane ticket in faith that we would get this car and he's just

shaking his head and he's like the first time I met you I felt that there was some sort of connection

that's something and you said well if it's meant to happen God will take it and and I'm thinking

no this is gone tomorrow but I still thought something there was something here and he takes

me into the person who has to do all the paperwork and she starts asking me questions about why did

you fly with a one-way ticket I did it in faith she drops her pen drops her paper she goes tell

me more and I just tell her the whole story I just told you and she's just sitting there listening

and she's she's just shaking her head and she's getting tears in her eyes and she's saying like

this is thank you for sharing that this is like this is like and she started laughing

and it was exactly like the verse and the humble ones will hear and rejoice

He wants this for us every day every day knowing you know Penny my wife said to me once if under an

old covenant before Jesus came and died on the cross and gave us his holy spirit if under an old

covenant Moses could speak with God face to face with the Lord and the Lord said to him

speak with God face to face like a man speaks with his friend

then why can't we even more so

under a new covenant God is a personal God

and when we get this

and this happens to Jacob all the time he's got thousands of stories he's never shared with

anybody because it's just between him and his Abba but when we get this and it's really personal

we're going to stop going to God just to inquire of the Lord like David did

we're going to we're going to it's not just going to be I need to make this big decision about a car

help me it's going to be so Jesus what's on your heart today

father what are you wanting to do today

father what nation is on your mind today

and the questions like and when you don't have a question he'll he can even give you one

recently and I'll end with this I promise

recently he says to me I mean it's my morning quiet time and he says to me

ask me the hardest thing I ever did

what I'm not talking audible voice here I'm talking I'm not talking imagining okay

imagining imagination projects something and tries to attach reality to it

faith recognizes what's actually there as real okay so there's a difference

he speaks to me and he he says ask me what's the hardest thing I've ever done

and I said well Jesus obviously the cross he said ask me

and I say okay what's the hardest thing you've ever done

and I said okay what's the hardest thing you've ever done

and I say okay what's the hardest thing you've ever done

he says the hardest thing I ever did was wait

and I was like what do you mean talk to me and he takes me to Psalm 74 verse 10

Psalms 74:10

and the psalmist is crying out and he says this is me crying out saying how long oh lord will your

enemies scoff how long is everybody going to drag your name through the mud and the father

Jesus says the hardest thing I ever did was wait for my father to say now's the time to go

because he so wanted he saw what everybody was believing about his father all the lies

people believed about him for years and years and years under the old covenant all these prophets

who were saying pieces and bits of the puzzle and they're giving all these piecemeal bits

and people aren't getting the right picture and they think oh he's just angry at me all the time

and Jesus is like I want them to know my father I want to vindicate his name

and he had to wait for thousands of years before he went to the cross to say if you really want to

know what God is like here I am you can't get this stuff out of a theological textbook you can't get

it out of a commentary you can only get it when you're in relationship with a person who's not

in relationship with a personal God and it's not you driving the ship it's his holy spirit

inviting you to say come I want to show you who I am I want to show you my face my ways my nature

and this is what he wants for each one of you father we thank you

I just praise you that you're such a personal God

you know every single person here you know what they came carrying you know what their week's been

like this this lofty knowledge is too wonderful for me to attain but we praise you and we thank

you that you're so deeply personal we thank you that we have been discipled into a relationship

with you and we are being discipled into a relationship with you and and we're allowed

to ask you questions and we're allowed to wrestle with you and you wrestle with us and we can actually

have this relationship with you I'm just so grateful and it's really hard at times because

you're invisible it's not easy to cultivate friendship with somebody's invisible but you're

to cultivate friendship with somebody's invisible but you're so faithful and you're always trying

to nudge always trying to speak in innumerable ways you have not withheld yourself so we pray

by your holy spirit we pray that you would nudge us this week with with our knowledge of these

principles that are so strong and so true we pray that you would breathe into each one of us

this week just freshness of personal personal encounters and relationship and conversations

with you that that our going out to speak to the world would be the sharing of the stuff that you

just told us and that you would just bring people to yourself because you are the truth

I thank you father thank you for what you're doing in this body we trust that you will bring home

every single person who was sent out from here that you would bring them home safely

amen

now okay um so I'm going to ask Diana to come up in a minute um but something I want you guys to

keep in mind is we can come to a service we can come in listen to worship we can come and hear

a teaching but every single thing that happened today was planned by God and so I don't want you

to think that the church service started when we started singing the church service didn't start

when we started listening to a sermon the church service it's not all little pieces it's all supposed

to be connected together so I want you to go back to the very beginning what did vedisha talk about

at the very beginning what was God saying what was God trying to engage each person here in doing

worship what was God saying while Eric was teaching this isn't an encounter to an encounter but this

is walking hand in hand with our father every day throughout every day and he knows every little

thing that's happening I'm I'm going to share something that uh when I was I had figured out

kind of what today would look like and then last night I was saying God God is there anything that

needs to be changed for tomorrow and he said yeah you need to include vedisha so I said okay well

what am I supposed to ask vedisha to do I could I give her a verse should I ask her for a word

and God had a really funny question I thought okay how in the world am I going to send this

to her in her text and he said he said you all you need to do is ask vedisha if there's something

she feels he's told her this week she's supposed to share on Sunday but okay that's kind of like

a really awkward question to send her but what's the worst so I kind of figured out how to make it

word so it would actually make sense and she went text back and say sorry Jillian what are you asking

me um and so I text vedisha and a couple minutes later I got a text back saying hi Jillian yes

there's something that I'm supposed to share and and so then I said okay God where am I supposed

to put it so even in how God lines up every single thing throughout not just a Sunday service but a

Sunday service is okay how do we come in practice what we've learned so that we can then go back out

into the week Sunday otherwise we can become a Sunday service to a Sunday service

but we're not called to live Sunday service to Sunday service but throughout my week how am I

living out how am I understanding how am I discovering how to walk this every day so that

it's otherwise a Sunday service can become an encounter but how every day throughout the week

am I walking hand in hand with my father so I'm going to ask Diana to come up and close and then

I'm also going to ask her to send us out because we have come gathered together as Christ bodies

and now we're sent out into the world and then in a week we'll come back during the week we'll

gather back together but we are sent out into the world

so

Fidisha I want to talk to you later I miss what you said

um

I'm going to pray and then we'll I'll give you a charge or whatever it is that Jillian wanted me to

do father I'm just so grateful for Eric and the message he brought today

thank you father that he's reminded us that you were really big on relationship we know that

amongst ourselves we know that with you sometimes but father I just pray that we would become

aware of the relationship that you want us to have with you 24 7 so that even when we're sleeping

when we're in relationship with you but but even more than that when we're out and about

encountering people and walking in the world that we're in relationship with you

and father thank you that that we've now got permission to stop performing

and we're freed now because of the words that erik has reminded us that we're free to just

share our stories of our walks with you because we all have stories and they're good ones father

so I just thank you father and I want to charge all of you now this is no longer the prayer this

is now the charge and I give it to myself as well the charge is to be alert and aware of God in

every situation and aware of the call to relationship not to performance

and come back with stories next week please and you're free to go