Getting Closer to God

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Well, I'm grateful to be here today with you, church, to be able to continue on our seventh part in the book of James Practical Faith for Practical Living.

James is the half-brother of Jesus and one of, if not the first book likely written in the New Testament, and this is a very practical book that is full of wisdom For us.

I have thoroughly enjoyed studying the book of James to bring it to you each and every week.

Today we are in chapter four, so let's stand up for the reading of God's word.

Today we're going to look at the first eight verses of chapter four Says this where do wars and fights come from among you?

Do they not come from your desires for pleasure?

That war in your members?

You lust and do not have.

You murder and covet and cannot obtain.

You fight and war, yet you do not have because you do not ask.

You ask and do not receive because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures.

Adulterers and adulteresses, aren't you glad that James is one of the nicest writers in the New Testament?

He's just so pleasant.

Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God?

Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God?

Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain the Spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously but he gives more grace.

Therefore, he says God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble.

More, submit to God, resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

Draw near to God and God will draw near to you.

I want to draw all my thoughts, main thoughts, right from that verse today.

Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.

We're going to talk today about getting closer to God.

I would like to pray and ask the Holy Spirit, and these are not.

I just want to again, just remind you.

When we pray James we'll talk about it next week he says the prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective, and Jesus said that my house will be called the house of prayer.

And I am such a believer in prayer.

I personally believe it is the greatest gift that God gave us on the earth.

Obviously outside of salvation.

I think the greatest gift that he's given us a tool is prayer.

So when I just say let's pray, I don't want you just to be in some Sunday morning mode okay, pastor's going to pray, but you're a house of prayer.

You're a people of prayer, and so what I'm going to do here is I'm going to lead us in prayer and I want to ask that God will anoint this moment.

I want to ask that the Holy Spirit will open our ears, and I don't need to tell you everything.

I want to pray, but what I'm doing is I want you to pray with me.

Will you, can you just activate your heart and prayer?

Holy Spirit, I come before you today and we gather in this room right now, being your church, who, you say, is a house of prayer, and so this morning we're, we thank you for this gift that you gave us, this gift of prayer that we could take this time and we could pray.

And God, yes, we sang it and we said Holy Spirit, you're welcome here Right now.

We pray it and we pray, spirit of God, will you rest upon this vessel, myself, to be able to communicate this word out of the scriptures, how you want me to say it and what you want me to say.

Anoint this moment.

Anoint our ears to hear and our hearts to receive what the Spirit of God wants to say to us, because, lord, we don't want to leave here the same way we came in.

We want to be changed by your word and by your presence and Lord.

We recognize today that there's going to be areas in our heart or our mind or our thoughts that are different than what your thoughts are.

We want to adjust our life to your word.

So we're praying for strongholds of thinking and thoughts and bondages in our own life to come crumbling down by the power of the Spirit of God in this room as we open up the Bible today.

Thank you for your word, thank you for this time.

I pray God, just as a pastor, the privilege and honor to pastor your people.

I pray for them right now.

I pray for people that are home, sick or in different valleys, whether they be in the room or online.

I pray, god, that you would strengthen the weak hands and those who are that feel discouraged or depressed.

I pray for a wind of the Spirit of God to come and encourage those, those that have had loss in their life.

We ask God will, with the presence, emmanuel, god with us, the comfort of the Holy Spirit, calm alongside, strengthen your bride, strengthen your church, those who are experiencing answers to prayer and victories in their life.

May they be sure to give you all the honor and all the praise and all the glory.

God, we honor you and we thank you for helping us to draw close to you and for strengthening your church and strengthening your bride today.

Give your way in the rest of this service.

We ask in Jesus' name, and all God's people said amen, amen, you may be seated.

James wants us to know that we can experience God up close and personal.

I remember when I was beginning to fall in love with my wife and wanted to experience her up close and personal.

I wanted to get to know her.

I remember as we began the dating scene, the dating journey.

I remember when we first started to say that we liked each other.

You feel like you're going out on a limb and you kind of go out there slowly looking to see if the other person will go out on the limb with you.

I remember you say things like this like I really like you and you're hoping that they respond.

I really like you too.

You're not sure how they're going to respond, but you're kind of, and so you're like well, I really really like you.

You're trying to get the hint across and you don't want them to respond.

Okay, thanks, you don't want that.

You're thinking, well, I hope they feel the same way about me.

I don't want to say I love you and them to say, well, I love you as a friend.

I do don't want that to happen.

You don't want to say I love you and feel like, well, I'm going to ruin our friendship if they don't feel the same way.

So you kind of I remember it's kind of going out on the limb with one another and I like you, I like you, I really really like you.

Well, I really really like you too.

Okay, well, she held out the longest and I said I love you and I told her and then, of course, she just fell all over me.

She was like I love you too.

We go out on limbs with one another, right in our approach and in our emotions for one another, our trying to draw closer to one another.

But you don't have to do that with God.

You don't have to be wondering how will God respond, because James makes it really clear if you draw near, he will draw near to you.

He won't leave you out on a limb, because he already hung on a limb for you and I.

He already declared how much he loves us.

He's the first one who said that I love you by giving of his only begotten son and dying on a cross for us.

So we don't have to treat God that way, with intimidation and wondering how he feels.

But James is telling us when we're drawing close to God.

He's telling us listen, you're to be in the world, but you're not to be of the world.

You're to be in acquaintance with the world, but you're not to be a friend of the world.

And we need to be close enough to the world to be salt and light so we can have an effect on the people that we have the privilege of doing life with, but we're not to be so close to it that we get consumed by the world.

So it's my desire in this message that each of us will at least take one step closer to God, because how goes our walk with God, so goes our entire life.

You know, my big idea for us today is this you can be as close to God as you are willing to be, and I highlighted willing because I wanted you to see that I did not say you can be as close to God as you want to be, because how many of you want to lose 10 pounds over the next couple of months.

How many of you want that?

I would love to lose 10 pounds over the next couple of months.

I'm just not sure I'm willing.

You know what I'm talking about.

I was like I want to be in better shape, but I'm not sure I'm willing to be in better shape.

We can be as close to God as we are willing to be, and James is letting us know.

If you'll draw near, if you'll be willing to it and you'll go for God, he will draw near to you.

I want to remind us that James did not believe that Jesus was God earlier on.

And so James and I don't blame him, right, if my older brother said, hey, I'm Spider-Man, I'd say show me the red suit.

Right, I go, show me this.

I need to see some Spider-Web shooting out of your hands.

I need to see you swing some from some buildings.

I need to see a little something before I'm going to believe.

So, Jesus, let him see a little something.

According to Corinthians, he appeared to James after his resurrection and said I'm Spider-Man.

I mean, he didn't say Spider-Man, but he's like hey, I am who I said I was.

And James became a believer.

Here's what Jesus was doing.

He was with James when James was growing up.

God was close and James didn't know it.

God was right there and James didn't recognize him.

How often does that happen in our life, where God is right there and we don't recognize him?

I think that God is always closer than we think he is, and that's the first thought I want to share with us this morning is that God is always closer to us than we think he is.

In fact, jesus snuck up on James.

Jesus likes to sneak up on people.

Does anyone remember?

There was a couple of guys on a road to a place called Emmaus and after Jesus' resurrection, he just snuck up on them, got into their conversation, started asking them questions, walked seven miles with them.

They had no idea that they were talking to God.

They get to where they wanted to get to and they break communion together, and when they broke bread together, god opened their eyes and they saw that it was none other than the resurrected Jesus Christ.

And right then beam me up, scotty Jesus disappeared from them.

Jesus likes to sneak up on people.

He snuck up on humanity.

Came in a form of a human in a baby suit.

He snuck up on humanity, and I think that we need to remember, as we begin to think about how do I draw closer to God, that God is always closer to us than we think he is.

And those of you who have lived long enough, you look back on seasons of your life where you think at the moment I didn't know where God was.

But when you look back, you go God was in my neighbor, getting ahold of my attention.

God was in my spouser.

God was in that person.

God was in that season of my life.

I didn't even know it at the time, but in retrospect you go he was there all along.

Is there anybody in the room today that would agree with me?

You recognize God is closer than we think he is.

I like the book of Acts says it like this, that we should seek the Lord in the hope that they might grope for him and find him, though he's not far from each one of us.

He's not far from each one of us.

Go ahead and tell your neighbor he's closer to you than you think.

Go ahead and tell him he's closer to you than you think.

God is far closer to all of us than we give him credit for.

We just need to stop, look and listen for him.

First thought is God is closer to us than we think, I think.

The second thing I want to say is a preliminary thought today is that God is better than we think he is.

Don't forget it to James, who told us this Every good and perfect gift is from above.

He's better than you think he is.

Remember this is the context of this book is the people who are scattered abroad because of persecution.

He's reminding them.

God's better than you think he is.

I know that what you're going through right now is hard.

I know that what you're going through right now doesn't make sense.

I know that what you're going through, it's hard to wrap your mind around.

Where is God?

But I'm here to tell you he's closer to you than you think he is and he's better than you think he is.

So, no matter what is going on in your world right now, no matter what is going on around you or with those that you love, I need to remind somebody every good and every not just some, not just some good gifts, not some every good and every perfect gift.

It's coming from God, who comes down from the Father of Light, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.

In other words, he never changes in whether he's good or not.

He is always good.

God is better than we think he is.

It's really important to remember that when you're like the readers of the book of the original readers of the book of James, because they're scattered because of persecution and James wants them to know, listen, he's better than you think he is.

Do not define God by your circumstances.

It's really important to remember that God is good.

God is good, listen, devil's bad.

This is Bob Graham theology.

I tell you this pretty much all the time, you know, because I'm pretty deep God good, devil bad.

And we're messed up.

Okay, god good, devil bad, we messed up.

So I don't want to ever blame God for the bad things that go on in life.

Nothing bad really ever would have happened in life if we humans wouldn't have messed the whole system up.

So God is good and I know that there's things that are hard.

I have stuff right now that I wrestle through with God and I, because of people I love, and I go God, I.

It's hard for me to wrap my mind around it, but I'm just, I'm gonna remind myself because I know this about you, you're good.

You're good now.

Some of you have some celebrity crushes.

Some of you just absolutely love this sports person or you love that Hollywood person.

Back in the day, when I was a kid, we didn't have social media so we couldn't follow on that way.

We got posters.

Come on any poster people.

Right, you slapped Michael Jordan up on the wall.

You're like, yeah, michael Jordan, you know.

Or you slapped whoever up on the wall and you just like here's the problem with all your celebrity or all of our celebrity crushes if you got close to them and actually got to know them, you might fall out of love with them, you might go, but you're not that nice.

I thought that you were super romantic.

He's like in all my movies, you know.

It's like, yeah, but you're not.

It's the exact, the exact opposite happens when you draw close to God, when you get closer to him, he doesn't get worse, he gets better all the time.

He just keeps getting better.

So I I came today to tell somebody we need an, a close encounter with God.

We need to get closer to him.

You know, we and as a guy I might think I look good, because I never really look in the mirror that much when I get dressed like my wife.

You know, you, you women, you usually look at yourself in the mirror and then, if you're married, you usually look at your husbands and you let them know whether or not they look okay.

For instance, this is my second shirt today.

I came to church this morning with a different one.

My wife came, had my daughter bring a different shirt for me because we're just just too busy, didn't give her a chance to take a peek, and so the list looks all right, doesn't it?

I look all right today.

She did good.

We think we look good, us men, until we come out of the dark, closet into the light and actually see ourselves.

I'm gonna tell you, god is light and he is absolutely beautiful all the time.

We, we just, if you aren't impressed with God, you haven't gotten close enough to get a good look at him.

If you're not impressed with him yet, it's just because your proximity needs to change.

Let me just say if you want your perception of God to change, change your proximity to God, because the closer you actually get to God, the better he is.

You know, when we walk into rooms as humans, we, we try to impress one another.

You know I just was in several different meetings recently this past week that you know I didn't know a lot of the people and I and it's kind of fun to watch and just sit around tables.

You enter into room and all those humans are just like kind of put out our best self.

God doesn't need to do that to be impressive.

God actually just comes in humility and we're in all dropping on our face going.

You are beyond my wildest Imagination.

You know, at one point in my life I'd heard about God's forgiveness, but then I got close enough to experience it and he blew my mind.

I had heard about the goodness of God's grace and then I got close enough to experience the grace of God and it was better than I thought it was.

I'd heard about the gospel and how good the gospel was, but then I Stepped close enough to receive the good news of Jesus Christ salvation for myself and listen, it got better than I ever thought that it was.

He really is better than you think.

He is almighty God.

He is bigger than we think.

He's better than we think.

He's better and bigger than any storm.

He's bigger than any struggle.

He's bigger than any anxiety, any, any, any, any, any depression, any addiction.

He's bigger than your grades.

Come on, can I hear an amen from a student today?

He's bigger and he's better.

And I think sometimes the reason some people don't pray enough is because their perception of God is too small.

You just haven't gotten close enough to him, because when you get close enough, you realize he is so much bigger and better than I thought.

I Just have to give him praise and have to begin to ask him of stuff, because I know that every good and perfect gift comes from him.

All right, so God is closer to us than we think he is.

God is better than we think he is.

And then James wants us to know this.

Before I say it, I just want you know I'm getting to a place to tell you in this message how do I get there?

How do I get closer?

We'll get there, all right.

So God will deal with sin, more than you think, and I know I always gets quiet when you say something like that, because everyone just kind of goes, oh no, he's gonna deal with.

This is a good thing.

Do you want to stay the same?

You know, I don't want to stay the same either, do you?

Do you want to be bitter?

Do you want to be you know, selfish do you?

Do you want to be self-centered?

Do you want to be insecure?

Do you want, do you want, to be full of lust or anger?

No, no, no, no.

I want God to deal with the sin of my life and to and to Rid me of it and to fill me with more of him.

Every encounter that you will have with God, when you draw near to him, it it will.

You will be amazed at who he is, and then sin will be dealt with in your life.

Now, god does not expect you to clean yourself up and then you can come to him.

He's not okay.

I, you, bunch of sinners, go ahead and get rid of all that sin, then you can come over to my house.

I want you to see the order of drawing near to God.

Look at this, look at what he says draw near to God, he will draw near to you.

Then Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts.

You double-minded.

It was not.

Cleanse your hands, purify your hearts, get it, get yourself straightened out, and then you can go to church, which you know is true for all of us.

We all feel like well, I got to get my life right enough to go to church and then God maybe you know, he won't you know strike lightning on me or everyone else around me.

That's how we feel in our humanness because of shame and because of guilt.

But you can't rid yourself of your sin.

You need to draw near to God first.

When you draw near to God, god draws near to you and then he cleanses us.

Now, if you have skin Like mine, light colored skin you know what it's like to get sunburn.

Anybody, any sunburners in the room Come on.

Yeah, some of you.

Some of you think you get sunburn.

Your brown skin just gets a little brighter.

I mean, you're brown, you just get.

But I know what it's like to get sunburn.

And here's if you've ever really gotten sunburn, here's what happens.

Your skin begins to dry up and then it begins to peel away and I remember as a kid it was kind of fun.

It was like Big I, you want to see how big of a chunk you can get.

I know that's disgusting, isn't it?

Yes?

And if it's on your back, you get.

You get a brother to help you and it's like Get to get as big of a chunk as you can get.

You see, if you get in the light of the Sun, your, your skin will be burned and it'll die off, and then the new skin will be more sensitive and it will be softer.

So it's soft and it's sensitive and the old just peels away.

How does that happen?

By being in the presence of the Son.

If you get in the presence of the Son of God, if you will just draw near to God, he will begin to burn off the old you, the old you.

You don't have to try hard.

You're not like oh, I'm just gonna try to not sin.

You know, it's not that it's like.

It's like draw near to God, I draw near to him.

Then he draws near to me and when he draws near to me he begins to fry All that old me and it just peels away and layers peel away, and that's pretty much how your Christian walk is, your entire life.

You're like yeah, I don't wanna say that we're like snakes, that's just kind of.

I don't really like snakes in the Bible, I don't even like snakes in the natural.

You know how they peel their skin away, so I won't use that in illustration.

But anyway, he just peels away.

People have been curious over the years when they've watched people's lives be changed by God after coming to live church or other churches, for that matter that really preached the gospel.

And I'm like what programs do you use to get the people that have been?

You know they were addicted to drugs for 27 years and now they're free.

What was your program?

Here's our program the presence of God.

If you get close to the presence of God, you draw near to God.

He peels away.

So remember our big idea today is this you can be as close to God as you are willing to be.

So I wanna share three thoughts of what we need to be willing to do, three thoughts about what I need to be willing to do not just want to do, but things I need to be willing to do in order to draw near to God.

Out of the book of James, the first thing that I need to be willing to do is I need to be willing to choose God's word to be my single source of truth.

James said scripture.

He quoted scripture in this context of what we read today about being double-minded, about loving the world or loving God and drawing near to him.

He uses scripture as his way to prove what the right kind of thinking should be in your life so you can draw near to God.

He didn't just, even though what he was writing was scripture.

He used scripture to back up his thought of how you draw near to God.

He wants us to know God is jealous for you.

This is what the Bible teaches.

So he's saying the single source of truth for your life needs to not be culture, needs to not be what your university says life is all about.

It needs to be what the Bible says.

So if I'm gonna draw near to God, I don't draw near to God based upon my philosophy.

I don't draw near to God based upon what culture says.

I draw near to God based upon what the Bible says.

Yeah, yeah, the Bible.

You hear me preach this again and again and again.

I'm gonna be accountable to God someday.

Without you there, I will be accountable to God, and if one of the things that I repeat the most will be just to get God's church in the Bible, then I'll be proud about that in a good way.

Right, I'll be like well, lord, I gave him your Bible.

I want him to read the word.

Just because the majority of culture may say something is true doesn't mean it's true.

In fact, I know I've been hammering this and the only reason I've been hammering it for the last seven weeks is because James hammers it.

Not only is it maybe not true, it's most likely not true If the majority of culture says I'm not talking about mathematics two plus two is four.

I don't believe it.

I'm not saying that.

I'm talking about what's normal.

I'm talking about what should be prioritized, because culture says basically all of cultural thought is self on the throne.

Self is on the throne, so you should never suffer, you should always fulfill your own pleasures.

Whatever you want to do, you should do that.

That is culture's God is self.

Just so you know.

And so if I buy into that philosophy, then I will make myself God and not God God in my life.

But when God's word becomes my source of truth, then I stop doing some things and I start doing other things.

Just because culture says that you should have sex before marriage and you should do all kinds of other things, you should, whatever it might be.

It's normal for culture.

And if you just get your thoughts from movies, books, culture, universities, colleges, then you'll feel like, well, this is normal, it's not wrong, it's God's okay with it.

Well, let's find out, and let's find out what God says and let's begin to adjust our life accordingly.

Now listen, I'm not telling you to go do that without drawing near to God.

What I'm telling you is is you've got to have the word to be your source and it will begin to produce something in you that you will then want what God wants.

So I gotta be willing to allow the Bible, the scripture, to be my single source of my worldview, my single source of my thought.

Can I hear an amen on that today?

Okay, next thought, I'm gonna go back one verse James, chapter four.

Verse four Adulters and adulteresses.

Thank you very much, james.

Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God?

This is a very strong in your face scripture that I think is really important for Western world people to get, because we live in so much comfort, we live in pleasure, we have so much time to do hobbies.

There are people that are living to survive on the planet still today, like much of the world did before these last few generations, that much of the planet just lived and survived and he's like.

So it's easy, without us knowing it, to begin to fall in love with the world when, listen, this is not our home.

Our home is there.

Friendship with the world makes you.

It is enmity with God.

Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.

All right, so it's all the pleasures of this life, all the things that this world has to offer, and I begin to put that into my world, I begin to put that into my heart, I begin to put that into my life.

I have to be willing.

Hear this here's what I have to be willing to do.

I have to be willing to choose wisely how much I allow in my life.

I have to choose wisely how much I allow in my life.

If I'm gonna draw near to God, the Bible will teach me how it becomes my single source of thought.

And then I have to be very wise in how much I allow in my life.

Here's what I'm.

Here's why you need to know this.

Your heart only has so much room, and if you choose to fill it with everything the world has to offer you, you will not have any space left for drawing near to God.

Your hunger and your passion and your longing and your groping for God will be gone because you used your passion on other things.

You only have so much room.

So, young person, middle-aged person, old person, whoever you are, hear me now online or in the room God gave you a heart full of the ability to have passion and love and likes.

Be careful, choose wisely.

How much you fill your heart with it will influence your drawing near to God.

So what does being a friend of the world mean?

He tells us that it's like you covet and you murder because you're not getting what you want.

And how that happens is is because I just want what everybody else has, and when I do that, I'm willing to destroy relationships over it in order to get what I want.

That's a friend of the world.

So another way of saying this thought is this If I'm gonna choose wisely how much I allow in my heart, I need to diminish the distractions in my life.

The world used to be a lot simpler than it is today.

We live in a very unique space of time where a hundred and 150 years ago, the world was quite a bit different.

You lived within a hundred miles for the most part of your world.

You didn't fly to this nation and to that nation and you didn't have social media and phones that were dinging all the time and television sets and you had all this media.

Just wherever you go, there's sound everywhere, there's sound in bathrooms, there's music going on and there's all of the stimuli happening in our world.

So we have to choose to diminish the distractions in order to draw near to God.

Oh, somebody hear me today.

I wasn't saying that to clap, I'm trying to get your attention.

I really want you to lean in with me.

Right now it is.

We live in a very busy world.

We live in a world that wants to capture your attention, and there is so many options.

There's so many things.

There's so many hobbies that you could take up.

I'm all about hobbies, but I think you should be careful how many you have.

There's so many sports options for kids now, and I think that's great, but listen, there's only so much that you should allow in your kids' hearts, because if you're like we're going to take every sport every season, no matter what it does, no matter whether it takes us out of church for six months out of the year or not, you're just going to train your kids with them.

That church doesn't really matter.

What matters is the things of the world.

And I'm clearly I am not preaching, not sports, you hear me.

I'm talking about how much.

I'm talking about how much you allow in your world and how much you allow in your family.

And the problem is is we've got social media and we see that, oh man, they're family.

They won that prize, and they won it in bowling, and then they won it in track and then they won it on a vacation.

Where did they get that trailer?

Man, I want a motor home like that.

Oh, you got to be kidding A car show.

I need an old car for a car show.

Oh, and they go fishing and look at that boat.

I need that.

And all of a sudden because this is what James is saying you covet what everyone else has.

And what happens is when you covet and you start filling your life with too much because of coveting, because what you see, other people you have no space left for God.

You became a friend of the world, you fell in love with the things of this life and so, young person, school is starting, parents, school is starting, choose wisely, have conversations as a family and say you know what God is going to be our priority.

That doesn't mean that we can't do baseball Doesn't mean we can't do football, doesn't mean we can't do soccer.

But let's just talk about how much we're going to do as a family.

Let's talk about it.

Let's talk about and here's why because I want us to always be a family that prioritizes God.

I want us to always be a family that we watch our hearts, we guard our hearts, because there's listen, if the devil can't get you to worship him, he'll just get you too busy to worship God.

That's it.

My phone just dinged.

I just got an email.

Did you see that, ed?

What are our kids doing?

You know who's going to clean the house?

What about my last post?

Did that outfit look better than that?

All the things of this life that are vying for our attention.

Paul wrote to the Corinthians about that.

He said I'm saying this for your benefit, not to place restrictions on you.

You see, it's like I'm not trying to be religious.

Listen, this is not a religious sermon.

I just want you to do whatever help you serve the Lord best with as few distractions as possible.

So even back 2000 years ago, the devil would use distractions.

Now we need a better mule.

I want to cherry it like that it's always going to be opportunity.

But if I'm going to draw near to God, then the Bible is going to be my single source of thought and I'm going to diminish the distractions.

I'm going to choose wisely how much I allow in my heart and then, last but not least, I need to be willing to do this.

Thank God every day for His grace and His mercy in my life, every day.

Here's why I say that because James, he goes, he gives more grace.

So remember James' tone is like in your face and he is like you, adulterers and adulteresses.

Don't you know that friendship with the world?

You're an enemy of God.

You make yourself that your fault.

But then he says this, and I'm so grateful he gives more grace.

So, even if I've went down that path, god just keeps more grace on my life to draw me out, to forgive me.

But you got to remember, god resists the proud, but He'll give grace to the humble.

So humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord and He'll lift you up.

There's something about when, every single day, I just say Father, thank you for such a great salvation, thank you for having mercy on my life.

I do this a lot.

I'll say God, thank you for saving my dad, thank you for saving my grandpa, thank you for saving my mom, thank you for saving my brothers, thank you for saving me.

And I'm just, the older I get, the more I appreciate my salvation.

I'm just thank you so very much, and every time I just thank God that he gives more grace.

It'll put you in a posture of humility and God will give grace to you and it will be.

You'll be actually drawing near to Him Without saying I want to draw near to God.

So here's what I'm going to do.

No, no, you're just thank you and all of a sudden you go.

I sense you, I sense your presence.

Thank you so very much.

So what if I just told you how do you draw near to God?

Use your Bible, diminish the distractions in your life and worship Him.

That's pretty much what I just told you to do.

That's pretty much what James tells us to do.

That if you will just go to the Word of God, make it your single source of truth and you will begin to choose wisely how much you allow in your life, you diminish the distractions in your world.

Jesus went up on a mountain to pray.

Get away from it all, don't take your phone, the world will not end and if it does, you don't care when you're praying.

And then just thank Him.

Just thank the Lord for how merciful and how gracious he is and, my friends, you will draw near to Him and when you do, he will draw near to you.

You can be as close to God as you are willing to be.

I want to pray for us at this moment.

I want to take a moment, as we have all seven weeks, and I want us to ask the Holy Spirit, you personally, what are you highlighting in this message for me?

What is it that you're saying to me right now?

So let's bow our heads, let's close our eyes, let's go before the Lord.

A spirit of God, we invited you and you're here.

I sense you.

I sense you're here right now and I'm asking, on behalf of everyone here would you speak to me?

What is it in this message that you are highlighting and you want me to be willing to do?

Thank you, thank you, holy Spirit.

I pray for the grace of God to rest upon us to be willing to take steps in whatever area of the scriptures and the thoughts that you share with us today that you want us to that you highlighted for us individually.

May the grace of God rest on us, oh God, that we would long for you, that we would not be satisfied with the things of this life, the pleasures of the world.

You alone truly know that you're the only one who satisfies, and you long for us, you're jealous for us.

I want to thank you for the grace of God for all the seasons of my life where I got distracted, and yet you never left me.

God, you're so good.

Can we just bask in this goodness just for a moment?

Can we just thank Him for His mercy?

Lord, we thank you for your mercy.

We thank you for your grace.

You're a good God.

I worship you With every head bowed, every eye closed.

Just for another moment, I want to talk to one specific group of people.

If you know you're not right with God and you're willing to become right with Him today, then I'm about ready to pray a prayer that I would love you to pray with me.

I'm not going to call you forward, but I do want to know who would be in this room or online that would say Bob, I'm not right with God, but if he could take me like I am and not lead me this way, then I'm willing.

I'm willing to draw near to Him.

If he could change me and forgive me, then I want that and I'm willing to do whatever he would have for my life If that be you and you would say, bob, I want to pray that prayer.

I want to get my life right with Jesus today.

Would you just look up and maybe wave at me so I can catch eyes with you.

I just want to know that's so great, it's wonderful.

Who else is here today?

I'm going to get in.

I don't want to miss you today.

It's awesome, thank you.

See you back here.

That's great.

If I miss you, jesus does not pray this just like yes, under your breath, as I pray on your behalf and our church family is just praying for you right now.

Lord Jesus, I come before you on behalf of my friends that say I want to be right with you.

I want you to forgive me of every sin that I've ever committed.

I want you to make me be born again.

So would you fill me with your spirit?

I want to be willing to serve you all the days of my life.

God, thank you for loving me just like I am, but loving me so much that you won't lead me this way.

Come into my life, Be the Lord of it.

From this day forward, I pray and all God's people shout out amen, amen.

I pray to all this.

Give Jesus a hand clap for his grace and, as we're coming over to you, we love you, lord.

Thank you for your mercy.

We hope that today's message encouraged you.

At Life Church, we believe that wherever you are in your relationship with God, there's always a next step to take, and we're here to help you find yours.

If you made the decision to follow Jesus today or you're simply looking to get more involved in this community, we invite you to check out our next steps page.

You'll find all the information you need by clicking the link in the description.

If this message impacted you in any way, we encourage you to do two things.

First, share this video with a friend.

It's a wonderful way to share the love of Jesus with someone that you care about.

Second, we'd love to hear your story.

Click the link in the description to share your testimony with us so we can celebrate all God is doing in your life.

We're excited to be on this journey of following Jesus with you and hope you have a great week.