Let God In | Gabe George

Good morning.

Man, so good to see all of you.

Welcome, welcome to Freedom Church.

If I haven't had a chance to meet you yet, my name's Jason.

I get the privilege of uh being pastor here.

Man, this is uh it's a great season.

We're coming to the end of the summer, and so I see a lot of familiar faces, a lot of new faces, and um man, we're particularly glad that you're here, especially if it is your first time.

Can we put our hands together and just welcome everybody who's here for the first time with us?

Awesome.

You know, this is um this is a strategic season for us.

We we we kind of we make plans as a church, kind of based on the rhythm of our community.

And I know for a lot of us, you know, a lot of us are engaging for the first time because I know I've talked to a few of you before after services.

It's like you're you're pretty new to Williston, you're you're you've moved here, you're you're trying to figure out where my family fit, and so we're hoping that we got some next steps for you at the end of service today.

I look forward to telling you more about that and for ways that you can find out more about freedom.

But I know a lot of you are are sort of re-engaging with your church again because the summer has been so demanding from sports schedules and I mean, we don't get a lot of nice weather, so we we gotta take advantage of that.

So I understand that.

So, and so anyway, the fall is a really strategic season for us, and so we actually have a new series that we're starting next week, and it's gonna go for about 10 weeks.

It's called Freedom, and I'm I'm really encouraging all of you to get ready for this series that's coming up.

This is one of those things that has been on a plan, kind of a plan on a page for several years for us as a church, and um and it's finally happening, and so I'm really it's gonna be a great opportunity for you, one, to engage into the church and and maybe find some community that you haven't been able to experience yet.

But also, I I really believe this, and I know you know, pastors, you know, everything's exciting and everything will change your life, but this one really will change your life, okay?

And so that's our expectation as a staff, and that's our expectation for all of us who are will participate in this.

And so we're gonna be encouraging you through this series, starting today, to do three things.

One, show up.

That's like that's half the battle right there.

Just like come to church.

And I know that's a battle, but it's amazing what happens when you just commit to showing up.

So show up, but then also grab a guide.

You can purchase a guide out in the lobby today, and then find your group.

Get in a group.

The group finder is open right now.

You can do it through the app or our website, or if you need some help, um, you can ask one of our serve team members out in the lobby, and they would love to be able to connect you with that.

Groups are already filling up, just so you know, they're already filling up, so make sure you take advantage of them.

I also have some next steps for those of you that are here for the first time.

But if you don't want to wait to the end of the service, there is a tap card on the, it's like a circle tap insignia on the on the seat back in front of you.

You can tap that, and that'll take you to our formation pathway page.

And so, anyway, uh, there's there's lots of steps in there for you to take advantage of.

Okay.

Guys, I'm excited about this morning.

Um, we get the privilege of having a friend of mine here with us.

His name's Gabe George.

He's been at our church several times over the years.

But um uh I know for the f this will be the first time for some of you to to hear from Gabe, but I I want there's certain people um that that are in my life that when I get around them, just I'm just this is me personally.

I I just get so encouraged.

I look forward to spending time with with Gabe.

And I think I think one of the things I've kind of learned as I'm kind of, I'm not that old, but you know, as I get older, one of the things I'm learning is like one of the best things, the greatest gifts I could give you is access to some of the relationships that maybe I've been able to have the privilege of having in my life.

And and this is my relationship with Gabe over the last years as is one of those uh ways that I get to love you is by bringing him here and for you to hear from him.

And so I'm excited for you to hear from from him.

And um so open your Bibles, take some notes, and would you do me the honor by by putting your hands together and welcoming my friend Gabe George?

Love you.

Appreciate you.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

What a privilege.

What a beautiful space.

This is a beautiful church.

I travel all over the place, and uh I speak in lots of churches, and this is definitely the coolest church building that I have been in in a long time.

And it is a gift to be here, it is a gift to be here in this pulpit.

Uh, this is hard fought for space, and I am thankful and honored to be able to stand in this hard fought-for space.

I'm extremely grateful for my good friend Pastor Jason and the Winnis family and the leadership of Freedom Church.

And it is a privilege to be here.

It's a privilege to be in North Dakota in August.

Uh I know that y'all had some hot weather, at least you thought it was hot.

I don't know.

I'm from Tulsa, Oklahoma.

I came up here and I just read this morning that it's been over 40 straight days where the heat index has been over 100 degrees.

It's, I think, 103 today in Tulsa.

And the the horrible thing about Tulsa is it's not just hot, it's humid.

So it's like you're on fire while you're getting punched in the face.

Um it's it's rough.

And so it's so good to be up here.

I flew in, but I didn't fly in.

I didn't fly in here, I didn't make it that far.

The airline didn't accommodate.

So I flew to Denver, and uh I had already missed my connection on Friday, and so I rented a car and started driving, and that was fine with me because I got out of the airport, went outside.

It was, it was, there was like actual chill, a little bit of a chill in the air, and I was just like, I could live here right now, I could live here.

And so I drove a few hours to the um metropolis of uh Gillette, Wyoming, and uh stayed the night and got up, and it was just beautiful drive.

Went through spearfish, and as I'm going down, I'm just like, you know what?

I I see the signs.

It's like, you know what?

I'm not far from Sturgis, and I thought, I've heard of Sturgis before.

And I thought, you know, maybe I maybe I'm just a few months, maybe I'll see what all the fuss is about.

And then I I I I I map it and I'm like, oh, it's only a few minutes, so maybe I'll drive through.

And then I I you know I realize it's why it's famous, you know, the the the hedonistic motorcycle rally, and I just thought, I ought to, I ought to Google, you know, just when is it?

When is this rally?

And I Googled and it's like, it's now, it's right now, and so it's like edit stops, remove sturgis from so I just went ahead and hooked it north and made my way up.

And uh it's it's beautiful here.

This is a beautiful place, and it's it's a privilege.

The weather, I don't know, to me, it's great.

It's great, it's great for a few more days till winter comes, I think, and just like next week.

Is it next week?

It starts to snow.

I don't know, but I am happy to be here right now, and I'll be happy to leave before winter comes in.

And so, yeah, it's a gift.

It's a gift to be here.

It's it's a gift because this odd thing that we do of gathering together this body of believers and the people who are exploring belief and trying to figure out what they believe.

It's a unique thing that we do, and it's happening all over the place, and it's interesting to me, just all across the nation, all across the world, or people are gathering today in the name of God.

And it's not just to gather because it's a good custom, it's to gather because we all need God.

And we know we need God, but to various levels.

We come into this room carrying weights.

Some of those weights are quite evident to us, some of them sort of lurk beneath the surface.

Maybe it's just sort of this subtle nagging in your soul that you're trying to figure out where you fit, you're trying to figure out where you belong, you're trying to figure out where that perfect sort of space is for you.

It just it always feels like something's missing.

For others, you find yourself a need.

You come into this room and you desperately need God, and you know why.

It could be something financial that has come against you, and you're just like, Man, I I I need help.

I'm desperate.

It could be physical.

Maybe you've gotten news that is not favorable to you, and your body is under attack.

It could be relationship breakdown, it could be a vocational breakdown, just things that challenge us.

And whenever we find ourselves in those spaces, what we want is we want those obstacles to be removed.

I mean, that's that's what we desire more than anything else.

But I'll also say that when we find ourselves in challenging situations, it's an opportunity for God to move.

And here's why.

It's not that God is just putting us in trying spaces, but it's often only in the trying spaces where we have ears to hear.

We're we're we're we're usually a little bit distracted, a little bit busy, and we just kind of have our own agenda, our own way, and we want God a part of our lives, but really we just we kind of want Him to blow wind in our sails and the direction that we've determined.

And what God is trying to do is He's trying to get our attention, and that's what this is.

It's it's that we come into a room like this and we submit.

We submit, we say, Lord, here we are, speak to us.

It's not just good practice, it's not just being in God's good graces.

God knows you, He loves you, He loves you more than you know, and He's better than you think He is.

But we often stand at a bit of a distance because we're not quite so sure what is it that He's going to ask of us.

It makes us nervous.

Whenever we think God is gonna ask something of us, it seems like if He's gonna ask anything of us, it's always gonna be like hyper sacrificial, and we gotta like we gotta give it all up.

And it's scary to do that because we don't know if we follow that path, will we be fulfilled?

Will we be satisfied?

And what God is trying to do in services just like this is reveal himself to us.

And then whenever we get an idea of who he is and we begin to see the clearer picture of who God is, we trust him more, and then he takes what we give him and he multiplies it.

God wants to multiply in your life, he's not distant, but the way we approach him requires a total submission.

That's when things change, not just coming in and hearing, but that you would hear it and then do something with it.

The blessing comes when you hear and do.

Before I get into the bulk of the message, it's in Psalm 24, is where I will go, but what I want to start with really quickly is James 1, uh verse 22 through 25.

I want to read these verses to you.

Sort of to set the heart posture, it says this in verse 22, but be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.

For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he's like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror.

For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like.

But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets, but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.

The blessing comes when you persevere.

What does that mean?

That you sit under the word and you stand up under it, that you persevere.

And it requires perseverance because you don't always know how am I to apply this or what will that application produce?

And it's challenging for us because it usually confronts our way of being.

That's what the word of God does, it confronts us.

When we come into the church, we're submitting to a confrontation, and of course it's a confrontation.

This really shouldn't come as a surprise that you would come into the church and be confronted.

A lot of people don't like that.

We feel like we want things to be encouraging, affirming, confirming.

We want help, but we don't want anyone to ask too much of us.

And so whenever you come into the church and things are asked of you, and it's like I they're they're always trying to take.

It's a confrontation because to sit in the presence of a holy God is definitely going to reveal deficit.

It just is.

And so God is trying to challenge us at our way of being, the way we operate.

He's trying to get our attention.

And the blessing comes whenever we realize that and say, Here I am, Lord, speak, but I'm also going to apply what it is that I hear.

And so the question to ask yourself as you sit this morning is, Lord, what would you have me do?

What is the step?

It won't be a master plan, it'll be a step.

What is the step that you are to take?

And if you hear that and you apply it, life transforms.

God will transform your experience, but it will come as you hear and do.

And so with that, I want to get into Psalm 24.

I love the Psalms because they're worshipful, they're the heart cry of men, written by many authors over centuries.

Many people wrote these psalms, and it is the heart cry of people to God.

And so this particular psalm is a psalm of David.

It is a psalm of worship, but really it's a psalm of a preparation for worship.

And so Psalm 24, 1 is where we'll begin.

It says this the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein.

I'm not going to spend too much time going over the reality that everything is here because God created it.

I would imagine that you're in here because you sort of believe this already, that you acknowledge the fact that there is a God, and that this God is responsible for everything that we see.

All life finds its origin in God.

Every single creature, all of the natural reality, both on the earth and in the atmosphere and in the space beyond, is here because God ordained it to be.

All human life draws breath because God has ordained it to be.

And I don't just mean he's giving you time.

It's every single breath is a gift from God, every one of them, whether you believe in God or not.

There are a lot of people that completely denounce the idea of God and act as if he is not there, but we all draw our existence from him.

This is the reality.

But even though all people are created by God, not all people are children of God.

There is a distinction between those who find themselves in the family of God versus those who are just made in the image of God.

It's a misunderstanding to assume that just because people are people, that they're all and we're all children of God, and so we need to treat people all as children of God.

Every person made in the image of God, yes.

But to be a child of God is different.

To be a child of God means that you give God a different level of access to your life.

This transcends simple belief.

There are people who believe in God but keep Him at a great distance.

Think of the difference between a dad and a landlord.

If you've ever rented a property, you sign a lease, and that lease has a lease agreement.

You agree to terms, the landlord agrees to terms.

Now you move into that space and it's your space, but it's not really yours.

You have rights to privacy in that space, you can lock the door, the landlord can't come in anytime he wants to come in.

This is your space.

You did not build it, you do not own it, but you have certain rights to that space.

The landlord doesn't come in whenever he wants, he can't come in and raid your fridge, you don't come home after a day's work and find the landlord on your couch enjoying your things.

This is a breach of the agreement.

You know this, we know this.

It's like, hey, look, the landlord agrees to stay out.

It's your property, but you can't come in here whenever you want to come in here.

A lot of people treat God like a landlord.

It's his.

I'm here because of him, but he doesn't have rights to my space.

He does not have rights to my preferences, how I choose to live my life, how I choose to govern myself morally.

Everything that I want to do exists within my boundary.

This is my life.

God is out here.

I want God to fix things whenever they break down, and I want him to do it quickly.

I want to be able to pick up the phone and go, hey, the AC doesn't work, I need you to fix that.

Hey, my job is wink.

I need you to fix that.

My body's breaking down, I need you to fix that.

I want you to have access to the things I want you to have access to.

But as far as my personal space goes, you don't have access to that.

Wow.

Many people treat God as a landlord.

But to the children of God, God is not a landlord, He is a father.

Whenever I was a freshman in high school, it was early in the school year, and there was a volleyball game that day in after school.

I decided to stay.

I have an older brother who's a couple years older than me.

He was going to pick me up at night's end when the event was over.

And so I was there.

It was the early part of the game, and I'm sitting with my friends in the bleachers, and I look across the gym.

The gym doors are open to the hallway, and I see something.

I see something that definitely got my attention.

I saw that my mother was in the hallway talking to one of my teachers.

And you don't know my mom, but I do, and I knew that this was quite odd that my mother would be here.

She shouldn't have been there.

I had a ride.

My ride was coming later.

My mom is here.

Why is she here?

This can't be good, is how I thought.

And I thought that for a reason.

I wasn't the black sheep of my home, but I was sort of like the gray, grayish, sometimes darker gray than other times, sometimes lighter gray.

And I saw her and I was immediately alarmed.

I was also alarmed that she was talking to one of my teachers.

This was never a good thing for me.

I was like, I don't, you don't need to talk, don't just don't talk to him ever.

Never once.

I'll do what I gotta do here.

You do what you need to do there.

Let's just have an agreement that you look that way and I'll figure out how to get through this thing called high school.

I'll make it through, but I'm gonna need you to look the other way while I do it because I'm gonna have to do some things in order to make that happen.

And those things aren't gonna be be a diligent worker.

It's not gonna be that.

So I'm gonna find so I see her talking to one of my teachers and I'm alarmed.

So I jump right up.

I run over.

I need to investigate.

As I get closer, I see the teachers laughing.

My mom's laughing.

I'm thinking, okay, good, this isn't bad.

She seems to be in a good mood.

I walk up, I tap her on the shoulder, I'm smiling.

Hey, mom.

And she looks at me smiling and she says, Go get in the car.

You know, it's like, you're putting on a good face for the public.

I get it, but there's something else going on in there I can see.

And so she sends me out to the car and I know something's wrong.

When she says that, I'm trying to figure out what it could be.

Could have been a couple of things.

I'm not gonna lie.

There are a couple of things it could have been.

Various levels of trouble for me.

And I'm like, it could be this.

And I'm trying to figure out how to deal with it.

But what I do not know.

What is it?

I'm not sure.

I walk out to the car.

My older brother's in the back seat of the car.

He's just sitting there, his head's down.

I open the door of the car and I look at him.

His name's Wit.

I'm like, Wit, what's going on?

And he doesn't budge.

He's just sitting there looking down.

He's just broken.

I can tell he's broken.

And I'm like, this isn't this isn't good.

Why are you here?

You're not telling me.

I'm in trouble.

I know that now.

I just don't know why.

And I'm asking him, but he won't talk to me.

Why, why, what's wrong?

What happened?

Well, he won't tell me.

And I'm thinking, hey man, help me help you.

That's what, like, I'm I'm I'm the one that knows how to kind of I'll get through it.

Give me something to work with.

I need to know.

I got a few seconds before mom gets in the car.

Maybe I can find a way through this, but you got to help me out.

He doesn't say a word.

So I'm sitting in there waiting for my mom.

My mom finally gets in the car, she closes the door, she lets out a big sigh.

She turns around and looks at me and she goes, I found your bag of tapes.

Now, I was born in 1978, raised in the 80s in Christendom.

And there was a sweeping movement through the church in the 80s to outlaw all secular music, right?

My dad got saved at 17 years old.

He was an alcoholic at a time at the time and in a band.

He distanced himself immediately from his past life.

He didn't want the effect and the power of secular music, which it certainly has power.

He didn't want it on us.

He didn't want us having to fight that battle.

And so it's like we don't listen to secular music in our house.

And this was fine when you're a kid.

When you're little, it doesn't matter.

There was plenty of music to listen to, and it was no big deal.

But then you get older.

Middle school, junior high, especially high school, and you're like, man, the Christian music in the 80s sucked.

It's the best way I can describe it.

It's a lot better today.

Way better.

Way more options.

So there was a lot of like old school worship.

It's just like just very adult worship.

And then there was some stuff in the middle that wasn't that great.

And then I noticed there was like a lot of like heavy metal worship stuff, like death metal worship.

Death death worship.

I don't know what it is like we're Christian, but you'll never know.

It was like a vegan burger.

It's like it kind of you're saying it's one thing, but it's Really, not.

You just bite one bite, and you're like, it's not, this isn't beef at all.

And that's what it was like.

That's what it was like.

And so these were our options, and they became untenable for us as we aged.

And so just social pressure, and then just like the appetite for better sounds, and we started to accumulate music.

And we go to the mall and you go to the music store, you know, and you'd buy a tape.

And it for you younger people, a tape.

It was just this thing that played music.

That's as good as I can do.

And um, and we had a lot of those tapes, and some of them were sort of neutral, tamer.

And then there was some stuff that that we really had no business listening to.

I mean, this this was the early 90s, and and and rap was really coming onto the scene in a mainstream way.

And just a couple of you know, white middle-class suburban kids from Tulsa, we really resonated with the uh the the gang culture of South Central Los Angeles.

It was just like, man, it speaks our language.

This is who we are who we are.

So there was a lot of that in there, and it was just like this isn't good.

When my mom said I found your tapes, I just felt like this is it, this is how it ends.

I wasn't so nervous that my mom found out.

And in fact, it would have been a dream if it could have just stayed contained in that moment.

I wasn't worried about my mother.

I was worried about my dad.

He's a formidable figure.

I was not completely afraid of him, but in this instance, I was deathly afraid of him for good reason.

I just thought, what is dad going to do?

What will he do?

Well, we wouldn't learn for a few days because my dad was out of town traveling and he wouldn't be back for three days.

This was good in the event that it meant that we wouldn't die that day.

But it was bad because then we just had to live with this looming fate, just dead men walking is what it felt like.

Just happiness ceased.

I remember being at school, and just you know, you're you you forget.

Every once in a while, you forget.

You know how it is, you have bad news and you forget, and then you realize, like, I got nothing to be happy about at all.

I don't know what's gonna happen to me.

That Friday came, and my dad flew home, and my brother and I were waiting in the room to be summoned, and he finally calls us into the den and he's he's just very solemn.

And he has that bag on the floor, and he's got it open, and he's pulling tapes out while we sit there, and he's looking at them, and he opens them up and he pulls out the tape jacket and he starts opening those things up and reading lyrics.

And I don't remember which album it was that he had in his hand, but I remember thinking, okay, that's not so bad.

That's that's fine.

I don't mind him reading those.

He was just, but I was thinking, there's some other dark corners, occultic corners, really in the bottom of that bag that I do not want you reading like that.

And he didn't go through all of them, thank God.

He's reading through, and then he began to deal out punishment.

And this is where the story stops.

Just I'm not gonna tell you what happened.

But my arms grew back, God healed them.

Praise God for that.

It was a hard day.

It was a dark day, it was a confrontational day, very confrontational, very uncomfortable.

But I can tell you this that at no point, at no point, when my mom confronted me, or I sat there in the den with my dad, did I ever think to say, How dare you go through our private space?

That's not your bag, that's ours.

You have no rights.

Never did I think to jump up, storm out of the room angry, go to my room, slam the door, lock the door.

If I had done that, I promise you I wouldn't be here right now preaching to you.

I contributed very little to my own existence as a ninth grader.

Everything that I had was because my parents provided it.

And even though that this this was a very uncomfortable moment for me and I wanted out of it, I did not like the confrontation.

Never did it occur to me to say, you have no right to confront me and my space.

Why?

Because he's my dad.

My father has access.

Now I realize not all of us were raised in the same kind of home.

For some of you, your home is not a safe space.

Your father was not a safe person.

And so there was some distinction for the sake of survival.

Maybe for you, it's like I've got to find a place that is my own, that I can close the door and lock it for the sake of being safe.

But can I just say that an earthly dad is not your heavenly father?

Your heavenly father requires access and not because he's trying to confront you to the point of just simply bringing you pain.

Your heavenly father wants to bring you to a place of freedom.

That's what this law of liberty is.

It's the law of freedom.

But the confrontation is required, and it's required because one, God is the creator.

We draw all existence because of him.

We do not have our own rights to our own personal space.

And there are many people who call themselves Christians, but they treat God like a landlord.

I just want him to do what I want him to do, but he has no right to tell me how to exist.

And this is honestly, just a little side note, the point of parenting biblically, the confrontation of parent to child required.

It is the thing that makes a lot of people uncomfortable.

And a lot of us are raised, or we raise our kids in a way where it's like my kids do have rights and that's their room.

I don't go in there.

I get it.

But at the same time, what we're to do as parents is we're to put an appropriate yoke of authority on our children so that they are raised, understanding that there is such a thing as authority, and that there are times where authority says, hey, that's not going to work.

And we learn how to submit.

And if we don't learn how to submit when we're young, then it becomes very difficult to learn how to submit to our Heavenly Father.

And then we kind of keep God boxed out.

But the reality is you're not being safe from God.

You're keeping yourself from the blessing of God.

God isn't trying to take and punish.

God is trying to bless, but he wants to show you who he is, and that will only happen as you give him access.

He's a father.

And that must be the approach we have.

It's like, Lord, here I am.

What does that mean?

All of me.

All of me.

My money, my time, my relationships, my morality, my obedience.

There is no place that you do not have access.

And the levels in which you keep him out are the levels where you will not receive blessing.

That's why we stay stuck.

Because our level of freedom is commensurate to our level of access we allow.

The more of God you let in, the more you'll overcome.

The less of God you let in, the more your life is in your own hand.

And only a little bit of life can fit in your hand, and everything else spills over and you can't manage it.

And that's why we live just sort of riddled with anxiety and fear all the time, is because our life is in our own hand.

But we're not meant to live that way.

God requires access, but God also gives access.

Surprisingly and amazingly, He allows us to access Him.

You ever think it's just kind of a strange thing to go to God with your personal request?

Does it ever feel weird to you?

It's like, this is a God.

I mean the creator of all things.

And I have this little issue that feels like such a big deal.

And a lot of us don't go to God with those things because we feel it's too small, it's beneath him.

But he is not just this distant creator.

He is a heavenly father, and he really, really cares.

And you bringing request to him is you saying, You have access.

I give you access.

But it isn't just God do this for me.

It's here, I bring my need to you.

And we have this privilege.

It says who is allowed access in Psalm 24, 3 through 4, it says this Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord, and who shall stand in his holy place?

He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to what is false and does not swear deceitfully.

Who can come into the presence of God?

This holy God.

Who is allowed access?

The scripture says the one who has clean hands and a pure heart.

Clean hands is how you interact with the world around you.

Pure heart is how you interact with God.

It's what you do and why you do it.

The scripture says that purity is required.

I can just tell you this that there have been some times in my life where I felt like I'm more worthy than other times.

There have been times where I feel like I I've been doing good enough to sort of like I feel that I have a little bit more confidence.

But then that's usually a short six or seven seconds, and then I feel like, you know, I don't I don't always measure up to this standard.

I don't measure up.

I'm not nailing it all the time with how I treat the world around me.

I'm not nailing it all the time when it comes to my motive.

In fact, I don't always even know what my motive is.

The scripture says the heart is deceitful above all things.

It's tough to know what lies beneath the thing that you're asking for.

What is it is it that I seek?

What is it that I'm looking for?

Clean hands, pure heart?

Who can measure up to that standard?

Who is allowed access to God?

Who can say they're worthy?

It goes on to further explain what this looks like, this pure heart idea.

He does not lift up his soul to what is false, the scripture says.

What does that mean?

Lift up your soul to what is false?

The scripture says that we are to cast our care on the Lord because he cares for us.

You ever heard that?

Yeah.

To lift up your soul is to bring your need, your heart cry to what?

To something.

You're either bringing your heart cry to God or you're lifting up your soul to what is false.

What does that mean?

It means that you lift up your soul, your heart cry to something other than God to provide fulfillment and satisfaction.

That if I could have this, this, or this, I would be satisfied.

I would find fulfillment.

What I'm missing will come from this being solved over here.

It's God, will you give me these things here that will fulfill, satisfy, protect, and provide for me?

If you'll do that, I'm good.

But the scripture says that we are to lift up our soul to the Lord.

In Psalm 25, it says, To you, O Lord, do I lift up my soul.

Let me not be put to shame.

So we lift up our soul, our care, our concern to God.

We're quite good at bringing our care and our cry to other people.

You see this all the time on social media.

It's just like people are going through things, and it's sort of like this my heart's cry just in a post.

And what are we looking for?

We're looking for something to make this pain subside.

We're looking for someone to help.

We don't know where to go, and so we just go to the world around us.

For a lot of people, they don't go to the world around them at all.

They just go inward.

We just sort of lump it.

There are things that I need, things that I know that I need.

I don't know what to do with it, but it's it's on me.

I gotta figure it out.

And so we just walk around with rocks in our shoes, trying to figure out how to live life, and it just sort of builds internally.

But the scripture says we don't lift up our soul to what is false.

We lift up our soul to the Lord.

That is one of the requirements for access to God, that we would bring who we are to God in entirety.

But this is a difficult reality to measure up to.

Treating the world around you well, treating yourself correctly where you bring your burden to the Lord.

This is not easy, and we all fall short.

So what are we supposed to do, those of us that feel unworthy?

Because there are a lot of us, we come into the house of God reluctantly.

And we especially come into the presence of God reluctantly because we don't feel worthy.

And it's hard to come into the house of God, and it's hard to say to the Lord, hear and pray with any confidence at all, because all we feel is inadequate.

And when we feel inadequate, we keep at a distance from God.

Our prayers are more just drive by Christ for mercy, have mercy on me, God, and I would love it if you would work, but I don't deserve it.

I certainly have not earned it.

And so what are we to do?

In 2015, I moved with my wife Summer and my two children to Los Angeles to plant a church.

After a time of much prayer, I felt like God was calling me out of the ministry position that I was in there in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in the church that my father started.

I felt like I was supposed to go plant a church in north of LA.

That's all I knew.

This was exciting and intimidating.

I'm familiar with Southern California.

My wife is from Southern California, but not from the Los Angeles area.

We knew no one out there.

It was exciting, but it scared me.

It scared me greatly because I just felt inadequate.

I felt inferior to the task.

I just thought, who am I to do this?

I knew that it was what I was supposed to do, but the weight and reality of that work just settled on me immediately, and I had so much angst because I just felt unworthy.

I felt inadequate.

And I gotta be honest with you, through most of my life I felt inadequate.

I was raised in a good home.

Had great parents.

They taught me the things of God, they revealed the standard of God, and that standard I always felt like I fell short of.

I believed in Jesus.

I never stopped believing.

I believed that he died on the cross for my sin.

I believed that he was resurrected.

I believed he was who he said he was.

I never stopped believing.

But I had a really difficult time receiving what it was that he did for me.

I always felt inferior.

And I find myself in June of 2015 moving out to Los Angeles on this bold adventure that I was excited and terrified to embark upon.

The first thing we had to do was find a house.

It took us a few weeks to do that.

It was quite trying, but that's a story for another time.

We eventually got our house, and that was a great victory.

But then the reality of the work began to settle in.

I had to build a church, and from what?

I had nothing.

I knew no one.

I knew no one in the area, and it wasn't exactly like being in Tulsa, a very different place.

And so I had to meet people, interact with people, find a place to meet.

No one wanted us meeting in their buildings.

They were not favorable to churches, and then the community itself was very hit and miss, and it was just very challenging to find people to do this work with us.

It took great faith, which I had faith in God, I just had no faith in me.

And one day I was just overwhelmed with the reality of what it was I was supposed to do summer, and the kids were going to head out, they had something to do, and I just was going to take that opportunity to truly cry out to God, honestly, lift up my soul to him.

I needed him, I was quite desperate.

They left and I went into my living room and I just cried out to God.

I lifted my hands, I began with worship.

The scripture says, You enter his gates with thanksgiving, his courts with praise.

I knew that.

That's what I did.

I started to worship.

But I'm worshiping and I'm emotional because I just feel it.

It's gotten to the point where it's just oozing out of me like a cup running over.

There was just so much in me I was carrying, it was just so heavy.

And I'm worshiping God in that living room in Pasadena, California, and I'm just crying out to God to help me.

And this part's a little personal, it's a little intimate, but I feel like it's important to share with you.

My hands are up, my eyes are closed, I'm trying to focus, I'm trying to worship.

And all of a sudden, in my mind's eye, it wasn't physical, but I just see I'm in a different place.

It's like something has changed.

I'm not worshiping God in my living room anymore.

I'm find myself in this sea of humanity.

I can see it vividly in front of me.

It was just people.

People as far as I could see that way, people as far as I could see that way and that way.

And we're all worshiping.

All I knew was God was that way, and I knew it because the peace was overwhelming, something I could not find.

I could not find peace.

But then the peace was so strong, it was just overcoming.

It stayed for days.

It was like a cloud of peace.

I knew where I was.

I was in heaven.

I was worshiping God with this throng of humanity in his presence.

And it wasn't about the beauty of heaven and what I could see in the mountains, and you wouldn't believe what the trees look like.

It wasn't that at all.

It was just, it was just being in the presence of God.

I was worshiping God, and God was that way.

As I'm worshiping, I will never forget.

The people in front of me begin to step out of the way, and they step out of the way to make room for a man.

And that man came and stood right in front of me, and I knew that it was Jesus.

It wasn't because I was looking directly into his face, I was looking straight, but it was like looking out of your peripheral vision.

I could not describe to you what he looked like, it wasn't the point.

He came and he stood there, and he didn't speak.

He just stood.

And my response was, in one hand, appropriate, but in the other, just involuntary.

I just fell on my face.

I just fell.

I mean, it's hard to stand in the presence of a holy God, and it's just shaking and weeping and just uncontrollably just being affected physically by this reality.

And I'm laying on my floor on the carpet and I put my hands where his feet would be, and I begin to utter a phrase I had uttered a billion times before in my life.

Every single night before I would fall asleep from a kid on, I would say, God forgive me.

I only ever felt the deficit.

And I start to say what seemed to be appropriate to me, God forgive me.

But as I begin to say it, I'm cut short.

He will not let me utter the phrase.

And instead of allowing me to finish, he said in militaristic fashion, get up.

It was so commanding and so powerful, I shot to my feet like a soldier.

And in those two words, I knew what he was saying.

This is kind of how you know when God speaks to you, it's like he'll say things to you, but those words have a greater life force.

Those words have a deeper meaning.

Those words have words.

And when he said to me, Get up, I knew what he was saying.

He was disappointed, not in me.

He was disappointed that I kept asking him to do something he had already done.

My problem wasn't belief, my problem was reception.

I would not receive him.

I would not receive his sacrifice because I had elevated my own deficiency above the reality of who he was and what he had done.

He had forgiven me.

But I kept asking him to do it, as if he hadn't done it.

He said, Get up.

I shot up and he said, Now go.

And the strength that I've given you, have I not commanded you?

And I started to say, You have to help me.

But he wouldn't let me get that phrase out either.

He said, I've already given you everything you need.

Some of us have a difficult time accessing this person of God because rightly we feel unworthy of him, and we are.

We are unworthy.

But how we receive him is not by cleaning ourselves up.

We do not receive his power and transformation by focusing on ourselves.

It's this weird paradox.

We change ourselves by looking away from ourselves.

We change by looking at him, and the more we look at him, the more we change.

The more we receive what he says, the more we change.

That's why the scripture says don't just hear it, do it.

Because when you hear it and do it, that's when transformation comes.

And for some of you, you have cried out for transformation.

You're asking God to heal you.

You're asking God to heal the broken pieces of your life, and you cry out to God for either mercy or healing or help.

But the Lord would say to you, What He said to me, I've given you what you need.

Does that mean He's done?

No, it means.

That he is ever present, but he's present with the solution.

And the solution is his word.

And our life will change.

Your life will change when you hear this word and you come into the house of God like this.

And instead of sitting there going, We did it, we check the box and we walk out, we feel good, but then we just move on about our lives.

What would it look like if we heard and did?

And what would your life look like?

And what would your day look like if you walked out of here and said, Because God said it, it's true, and I'm going to put it to bed.

Because he forgave me, I am forgiven.

Because he said his blood washes me clean, I am clean.

Does that mean I always do the right thing?

Does that mean I always nail it?

No, but you'll never overcome negative pattern in your life by looking at yourself.

You'll never will power it through.

It will be by faith receiving what he says about you.

And as you do that, your life will change.

When you receive what he says about your situation, your situation will change.

And a lot of the time it changes because you change.

And when you change, you have a different perspective, and then your situation changes because God has empowered you to see it differently.

But all of it is in his hands.

And instead of looking at ourselves, keeping a distance, hiding in the bushes like our ancestors did in the Garden of Eden, we say, Here I am, Lord.

And we don't let shame and condemnation keep us from who he is.

The last verse that I want to read to you out of Psalm 24 is verse 7, and I'll close.

It says this Lift up your heads, O gates, O ancient doors, be lifted up, that the King of glory may come in.

This was in the time of the Ark of the Covenant, where the presence of God resided in this ark, and God would often direct Israel to go into battle with this Ark of the Covenant, his presence leading the way.

And God would fight battles on behalf of Israel, and they would win miraculous battles and wars.

And then they would come back into the tabernacle of the temple, and that ark would lead the way, and the high priest would cry out these words to the people manning the gate.

Lift up your heads, O gates, be lifted up, O ancient doors.

In other words, expand.

Because the king of glory is coming in, and this doorway is not big enough for him, for his glory.

So expand, and he would cry out, and the ark would make its way into the town, and the people would no doubt line the streets and they would praise and they would worship.

It's kind of similar to what happens whenever your sports team wins a title.

Is that the people come out and they gather in the city and they get behind the ropes and the team comes through on the float and everyone cheers because we have won a great victory, except we didn't win anything.

They did, and we were there cheering, and we know it, and we know it because there is a rope there keeping us from actually being on the float with them.

But when Jesus won his victory on the cross and was resurrected, he marches through the town, but he cuts the rope.

And he says, You come up here with me.

My victory is your victory.

Because I won, you won.

Because I'm righteous, you're righteous.

Because I'm victorious, you're victorious.

And the more you believe that, the more it will be true.

And when you look at me, your life will change.

When you look at me, you'll begin to see things that you never saw before.

It's a question of access.

This is the gift, the inheritance of the children of God.

But don't be a child who lives at a distance.

Don't be a petulant teenager who runs into the room, slams the door, locks it, and says, You don't have access to this space.

Whatever you contain yourself, you're responsible for.

It's pretty overwhelming to be responsible for your life.

We're not very good at it.

We make quite poor gods.

But there is a God who is good.

And he wants to show you.

And the way he shows you is when you say, Come on in.

He stands at the door of your heart and he knocks.

Will you unlock the door?

Will you let him into all of it?

I came here this morning to remind you of that.

Will you bow your heads, please?

Almighty God, thank you.

Thank you, Heavenly Father.

Thank you for your presence in our lives, your goodness.

Thank you for this word.

It is a word of conviction.

It gets our attention.

Oh Father, may we be obedient children.

May we allow you access.

May we be found in your favor, Lord.

We are in your favor because of the Lord Jesus.

When we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

While we were distant, Christ died for us.

Died to bring us close, died to bring us into communion with you.

He died, Lord, and paid the price that we should pay, all of us.

But he paid the price for us, and for those who receive him, we receive the sacrifice and we receive the righteousness that only he can produce, only he can provide, and you give only through him.

We will not find this righteousness anywhere else.

We will never clean ourselves up to the point where we feel like we deserve it.

But Lord, in this moment we receive what it is that you did for us.

Jesus, we receive you.

Not just the belief in your existence, but that you died and went to that cross to pay the full price for our sin.

We receive it.

The full price has been paid.

The entirety of it wiped out.

We receive it.

You were brought to life, and this is the gift extended to us that we could receive new life, to be born again, changed from the inside out.

We receive it.

Lord Jesus, you are resurrected, you are sitting at the right hand of the Father, and we have the opportunity to be in you, seated at the same place in you.

We are your body, we receive it.

We receive it by faith, Lord, not because we've earned it, because we haven't, but as a gift of grace.

Thank you.

The words fall short, but we thank you.

Thank you for bringing us close.

Thank you for this great gift.

Thank you for calling us your child.

Lord, we receive you as Father.

We allow you the space to invade.

We give you permission to come into our space, to touch every corner of our lives.

May we not keep locked compartments, but Lord, may we open our hand.

We don't have to know how you'll do it, but we know that you will because you're faithful.

Even when we are unfaithful, you remain faithful.

And we thank you.

And we make a declaration in our heart this morning that before we leave this room, we say, Lord, we will give you more.

We give you more of who we are.

Give us the strength, Lord, to open the door of our heart to allow you in.

You have begun a good work in us.

You are well able to bring it to full completion.

Thank you for being faithful to us.

Thank you for picking us up, for washing us clean, because you said it, we are righteous, and we have a future with you.

And we thank you for all the good things you have done, are doing, the good things you will do.

May we be hearers and doers.

In Jesus' mighty name.

And everyone said, Amen.

Thank you so much for having me.

God bless you all.

Will you just, before I walk off, will you just give God praise and thank him, just where you sit, just thank him for what he's done for you.

God bless you.

Thank you.