Experiencing God - Reality 3

Well, church, if you have your Bibles, go ahead and open them to Exodus chapter three.

And as you do, we're continuing our sermon series on experiencing God.

And we're in reality three.

We've got a graphic that shows the seven realities in like a picture form.

This is what we're talking about, these ideas from the Blackabees that are really God's ideas of just trying to articulate how did God speak throughout time to different people.

We saw, we know that God is always at work around us.

That's reality number one.

Number two, that God is pursuing a continuing love relationship with us.

And because that that comes second, because God is more about the relationship, you being with him, than anything you would ever do for him.

And we talked about this a lot last week that you being with Jesus is more important than anything you could ever do for Jesus.

And like I need to be reminded of that truth.

Because in my own life, where I've really experienced like praise from people or like this fulfillment from peers has been more about what I do.

Like, if you can do, if you can achieve, if you can perform well, then you receive the love, then you receive the cookie, then you receive the good things that come with that.

But God says, no, no, I just want you to be with me.

And I'm pursuing a continuing love relationship where what you hear from me continually is I care more about you than anything you would ever do for me.

Now that doesn't mean that he's never going to call us to do great things for him, for his kingdom.

But that means that we are secure, we are free to enjoy him first without any strings attached.

That's a kind of unconditional love that we don't see often in the world.

We're terrible at giving that kind of love to one another.

And you can see this in your family relationships where you're short because you're not extending that grace, where it's more about just the relationship than the performance.

And then today we're going to look at this invitation that God has for us to join him where he's already working.

And then before we jump in, uh, we'll see that next week we're going to talk about how God speaks.

He speaks to us in uh these distinct four ways to reveal his plans and his purposes.

And then we'll talk about how usually, if we're not used to experiencing God, that leads us to a crisis of belief where I have to decide, am I going to keep living the way I was living, or am I going to adjust to God's way and how he would have me live instead?

And then that leads to us adjusting, number six, and then seven, where we really will experience God is when we obey him.

Like you will feel most alive when you are most obedient to God.

You will be full of the most joy when you are obeying God the most.

Because as you obey him more, you know him more.

As you know him more, you love him more.

As you love him more, that leads to more obedience, a deeper abiding love and trust, which is where the joy is full.

Jesus wants us to have the abundant life that comes from only abiding, obeying, and experiencing Him.

And it kind of turns our world upside down, where instead of me saying, Okay, God, here's my dream that I have, will you bless that dream?

No, it's God, where are you already at work?

And how can I participate in that?

We were talking at our experiencing God this this week, uh, our group this week, and we were talking about like, have you ever heard God?

Like, has God directed you?

Has He guided you?

What does that look like?

And and part of what I shared was uh I got saved February 21st, 2011.

I was a junior at Texas AM University, and and I experienced the life-changing reality of Jesus, where I cried out and I recognized, like, I am jacked up and I continually fall short of the glory of God, and I need a savior.

And like for the next year especially, the Lord just had me in this place of like, I wanted to just read his word.

Like, I would, if you where would you find me?

You'd find me in the library still, but instead of studying biology, I was studying God's word.

You'd find me, uh I joined uh a ton of Bible studies, and I was just I was eager to be in as many Bible studies as I could be in because I wanted to know how I could obey Jesus more.

And then I started to go to a Friday church where we would teach these kids about Jesus, these third and fourth grade boys, uh, and Brian about Jesus, and I was like, this is awesome.

And then my third week there, they're like, hey, would you like to teach?

And I'm like, hey, I haven't really been doing this a very long time.

I haven't really been walking with the Lord a very long time, but uh yes, yeah, I'm I'm game, let's go.

Uh and and so over the next year of my life as a baby, tiny little Christian guy, uh my passion for medicine, my passion to pursue this pre-med dream that had been in me since I was 12 years old, uh, that had sort of started from a really great place, I realized that a lot of that was me just trying to prove myself, me just saying, like, I can outwork others, I can I can learn more, I can do better, I can do all these things.

Uh and so as I started to see the selfishness in my old desires, and I started to see like where I feel most alive is when I'm making disciples, when I'm uh not just in the Bible studies, but then I had started leading these Bible studies, when I'm making disciples, when I'm teaching God's word to God's people, and seeing the that light bulb moment of like, wow, like I can I can have that relationship with Jesus personally, and like talking about the grace that transformed my life was where all my joy was.

And so uh in February of 2012, I'm like three months from graduating from AM with a biology degree that feels close to useless.

And as I'm preparing for that, I'm looking ahead and I'm saying, God, what are you doing in my life?

And everybody that I'm listening to, all these different uh sermons and podcasts and different things, all these guys are involved in this church planting movement.

And so like I'm like, God, what do you what would you have me to do?

And as I continue to pray, I continue to say, okay, God, would you just show me where you're working?

Like, would you just show me how I can participate with what you're already doing here?

Like, where would where do you want me to lean in?

Where do you want me to invest my time?

And then uh like church planning, I can't shake that idea.

And so the whole first week of February, I'm thinking about church planning.

The whole second week, I'm like, God, where would you have me participate in that?

It's like, well, I want you to plant churches that plant churches.

I want you to participate in that.

And so uh I'm like, okay, that seems very specific, but I would love to participate in that way.

And then the week after that, uh, a friend of mine that I barely knew, his name's Chris Pleckenpole, uh, he tells me, and I knew him from uh the Bible studies that I had been a part of, and then that I was leading at that point, uh, he says, Hey, I'm moving to Austin like this month.

I'm moving, that was February was when he had just moved to Austin to go and take over as a church planting pastor at Wells Branch Community Church.

He didn't plant the church, but uh the pastor who planted it had passed away doing uh tornado relief in Joplin, Missouri.

So he was moving to Austin.

He says, I'm gonna I'm gonna go and move to Austin.

Come train under me for 10 years, and then I'll send you out to plant a church.

I said, Yes, let's go.

So, how did God reveal his will for my life there?

Uh it was through this passion that I couldn't shake that first week through.

Uh, where do I fit in that the second week, the third week saying, Here's a friend who shows up and says, Come and join me in church planting, and I will send you out to go and plant churches.

It's like, okay, God, it seems like you kind of set these things up for this moment where you would lead me here.

And then over the next 10 years, I would serve there.

I would serve as uh just a volunteer, a happy volunteer for a few years.

I would serve as a community group leader, I would serve in young adult ministry, I would serve in basically every ministry in the church.

And over time, uh then I became an elder at the church, and then I became a pastor at the church, and then 10 years to the month of when I moved down to Austin, I was sent to Huddle Bible Church to be their church planning resident to start Taylor Bible Church.

And so God revealed this plan.

He said, come and participate, come and join me where I'm already working in this church planning movement.

And so when I talk about these eight guys that are uh church planning residents at these other places, I'm excited for them because uh that eagerness to see every man, woman, and child reach with the life changing round of Jesus Christ, that that is our heartbeat here at Taylor Bible Church.

We can't do that on our own.

We have to plant more churches because the people, the nations are coming to Austin.

Look at all the development that's happening all around us.

Whether you feel great about it, whether you hate it, it doesn't matter.

The people are coming to us.

And so we need to plant more churches.

We need to participate in this work.

And so we can get excited about what God's doing as we continue to look ahead and say, God, we want to experience you.

We want to join you in the work that you're doing.

We want to be disciples that make disciples.

We want to be churches that plant churches.

We want to participate because we have this love relationship with you.

And I love this book because it talks about like these realities that you already know, you're already familiar with because you've read God's word, but it makes it really clear.

It kind of draws it out in a way of like, yeah, that is true.

Like, God does invite us to become involved with him in his work.

That's incredible.

I want to receive that invitation.

I want to hear that invitation as he speaks to me, and I want to say yes to God because I want to participate in seeing his will be done here.

I want to participate in seeing his kingdom come here.

And so we say, God, where you've spoken in your word, would you make it clear of like, how can I just obey that?

How can I be a little bit more faithful today than I was yesterday?

How can I continue to grow in the likeness of your son Jesus?

Not because I have to perform to be loved, but because that's where my joy is going to be full the most.

That's where I'm going to experience your grace, your kindness, your mercy in a way of like, that's freedom.

You don't have to live in fear of being found out.

You get to live in the freedom of God's love being poured out to you.

You get to live in the freedom of enjoying that relationship with Him, where if everything else falls apart, you've got Jesus and that's enough.

And sometimes it feels that way.

Like if you're uh it can be like the smallest of things of like, I don't know how this uh inspection might go.

And oh, I've got to do all this these different things that have to happen in this time, and God's saying, hey, like I'm the sovereign one who rules over all.

Do you believe that?

And I'm not just the sovereign one who rules over all, but I'm also the one who called you by name, who knows exactly how many hairs are on your head, who knows all of the very unique things about you that make you you and loves you, anyways.

And called you to himself, anyways.

And so before we jump all the way in, we're gonna pray, and then we're gonna we're gonna briefly discuss those first two realities, and then we're gonna talk about uh reality three, how we can experience God.

Would you pray with me?

Lord, would you speak to your people today?

Would you help us to hear from you that we are loved?

Help us to hear from you that you are inviting us to participate in your plan to bring every man, woman, and child to yourself.

Would you help us to hear from you that you're alive, that you're moving, that you're at work right in front of us.

And help us to experience your grace.

Help us to experience the grace of saying yes to you so that our joy might be more full today.

We love you and we look to you, and we pray all this humbly in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Alright, so week one, we talked about how God is always at work around you.

And we talked about this quote in John chapter 5, where Jesus said, My Father is still working, and I'm working also.

John 5 · chapter mention

Truly I tell you, the Son is not able to do anything on his own, but only what he sees the Father doing.

For whatever the Father does, the Son likewise does these things.

For the Father loves the Son and shows him everything he is doing.

So God is gracious to reveal to the Son the ways that he's working, and the things that Jesus does that have any sort of eternal significance, the things that he would say yes to are the things that the Father reveals to him.

And Jesus is unique in that he only said yes to the things that the Father called him to do.

We tend to say yes to other things that won't have any eternal significance as well.

But we want to follow Jesus' example of saying, God, what are you doing?

How can I do these things?

Because apart from him, we can do nothing.

But with him, we can do things that will last far into eternity, things that have eternal significance and impact, things like knowing his word, sharing his word with others, uh, seeing we have all these children, right?

Seeing our children love and follow Jesus because we want to help them to love and follow Jesus.

And we're not just like listening on Sundays, but like we're so transformed because we're hearing from God throughout the week.

Because we're on our knees throughout the week, saying, God, we need your help.

We're opening God's word, saying, I want to hear from you because you're going to speak to me, Lord, not just on Sunday, but in my personal time with you as well.

And that's why we do studies like experiencing God, so that we can grow in fellowship together, but also so that we can grow in our confidence in reading and understanding God's Word, that we can hear from God Himself.

Week two, we talked about how God pursues a love relationship with you.

Before he asks you to do anything, he wants you to be with him.

Jesus, when he was calling his disciples, this is one of my favorite verses, he went up on the mountain and he called to them those whom he desired, and they came to him.

Like the twelve that he would call apostles, he said, I want you to be with me.

Before I want you to send, to send you out to preach, before I want to send you out to cast out demons, before I want you to do supernatural, incredible miracles, I want you to just be with me.

And that invitation is the same for us.

That before he wants you to do anything, he just wants you to be changed by sitting at his feet.

Be changed by sitting with King Jesus and recognizing that he has this incredible, perfect, pure, beautiful love for you.

And he wants you to experience that grace of I've got a better way that you can walk in.

A better way than what you've been walking in.

And then he appointed his twelve so that they might be with him.

God wants you to be with him before he wants you to do anything for him.

This is so essential, church.

It's so essential for us to know that, for us to believe that.

And then we talked about these prerequisites for these realities that we need to recognize that a relationship with Jesus is key first.

And so if I talk about these realities for experiencing God, but you don't have a relationship with Jesus, then none of these will make sense.

We need to recognize that we've all sinned and fall short of the glory of God, that the wages of that sin is death.

But God demonstrated his own love for us and that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

And the way we receive that invitation, the way we receive that free gift of eternal life, is through confessing that Jesus is Lord, believing in our heart that God raised him from the dead and we'll be saved.

For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

And so then that leads us to today, reality number three.

God invites you to become involved with him in his work.

And these are all very uh, they're hard to separate.

You almost want to talk about all seven.

Every time you start to talk about one, you want to talk about all of the other seven.

These are the ways that God is at work around us.

He's inviting you to become involved in his work, but after, he's inviting you first to just be with him.

And after we recognize that he is always at work around us.

And the things that are his priorities, he's made really clear through his word.

And he's never going to contradict his word as he's speaking and guiding each of us individually and personally.

And so we recognize that like God has called us to be disciples who make disciples.

He's called us to be a church that helps people to follow Jesus because that's what we want to be about.

He's called us to be fishers of men, which means that we would care for people that don't know the Lord yet and invite them into a relationship with Jesus.

God is the sovereign ruler of the universe.

He is the one who's at work.

He alone has the right to take initiative to begin a work.

He doesn't ask us to dream our dreams for him and then ask him to bless our plans.

He's already at work when he comes to us.

His desire is to get us from where we are to where he is working.

Like spend time doing what actually matters.

Some of the temptation with the building right now is for me to try to uh take on some of the jobs that I'm not good at.

So like if I try to spread rocks in a parking lot, it's gonna look terrible.

And it's gonna maybe have big pools of water that are still in there right now from me trying to do it in uh vain because I shouldn't be the one who's doing that.

Right?

And God's saying, don't waste your time doing something you're terrible at.

Come with me and be a part of something much more exciting.

Be a part of something that will have much more impact, something that I'm actually calling you to do.

But it's gonna take self-control.

It's gonna take a willingness for us to be still and listen to our God.

A willingness for us to say, I want to listen to you first, God.

I want to be with you first.

And would you reveal your work to me in your timing?

And help me to say yes when you say go.

Help me to say yes when you tell me what you would have me to do.

As we look at Moses' life, we've been talking about how God would use Moses to deliver the Israelites from slavery in Egypt.

His purpose was always to deliver the children of Israel.

It was always to establish them as a nation.

But Moses was the one through whom God wanted to work to accomplish that.

And it wasn't because Moses was awesome, it was because God was gracious to use a very average guy that's just willing to say yes.

And I say average.

He has some things that made him unique.

But none of us are that special.

And I say that lovingly.

Like, you're not special.

So stop tripping yourself up thinking that, like, oh, I'm God's gift and he has to work through me.

No, he really doesn't have to work through you.

But you get to be used by him to do his will, to do his purposes.

Not because something special and unique is about you, but because he delights in using the weak to shame the strong.

So the weak one who says yes gets to be used by God.

Not because you're awesome, but because God says, I want to work through you in spite of you sometimes.

So God invited Moses to be involved in his work.

Exodus 3, 7 through 10.

At this time I'm going to invite you to stand up for the reading of God's Word.

These aren't James's words, these are God's words.

And so it's in reverence for God and his word that we read this together.

Then the Lord said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and I have heard their cry because of their taskmasters.

I know their suffering.

And I have come down to deliver them out of the land, out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of the land to a good and broad land.

And now behold, this the cry of my people, the people of Israel, have has come to me.

And I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppressed them.

Come, I will send you to Pharaoh, that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.

This is the word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

You can grab a seat.

God invited Moses to become involved with him in his work.

When the Israelites are afflicted by the people of Egypt for years and years and years, hundreds of years.

He hears, he sees, he knows.

Like I have seen the affliction of my people.

I have heard their cry.

I know their sufferings.

Some of you are in a moment right now where it feels like you're suffering in silence.

You feel like God doesn't know that you are suffering.

You can see through God's word right here.

When you're suffering, God sees, God hears, and God knows.

You're not suffering alone.

He sees his people.

He knows because he hears them.

He knows our sufferings.

And with the Israelites in captivity to Egypt, he also came to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land.

So then he's going to say, Moses, I'm inviting you to be the one to lead my people out of Egypt, to deliver the famous, let my people go speech to Pharaoh.

For you to be the one who would take them out.

Now, if if Moses said, Hey, this is my idea, let me go and let me make this happen, it would have been a disaster because these are untrained people, these are people that would have failed and flailed and lost miserably to the mighty Egyptian army if had they tried to deliver themselves rather than waiting for God to rescue them.

And what's crazy is that like 645 years prior to the Exodus, God spoke to Abram, and he mentions that they will be enslaved for centuries.

Genesis 15, 13 through 14.

The work that God is inviting Moses to be involved in isn't just Moses' work.

This is God's work, like his plan for redeeming his people, that he said, even 645 years before they would be delivered, he says to Abram, Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs.

They will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for 400 years.

But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they will come out with great possessions.

Like God has this plan that it's not just like, hey, today, here's what you're gonna do.

We're often focused on right now, what do we need help with?

And God is saying, Hey, I've got eternity in mind, and I'm gonna invite you into something that is of eternal significance that you can't even see the ramifications of what I'm inviting you into.

You can't even see the impact of what I'm inviting you to participate with me in.

But he's inviting Moses to be a part of his work that he spoke to Abraham many years ago.

And so as we're thinking about like today, what does God have for us?

Do you feel drawn to join God in his work in greater tailor?

Like he brought you here for a reason.

Whether you want to be or not, you're part of his plan to share his love here.

The place that you live is not a mistake, the place that you work is not a coincidence.

Your neighbors aren't your neighbors by happenstance.

God placed you in a certain time, in a certain place for this purpose.

He has given you a stewardship to your friends, to your relatives, to your acquaintances, to your neighbors, to your coworkers, even to your enemies, and even to strangers that you will run into later this evening that you would be the light, that they see, that they would have an opportunity to hear about the life-changing reality of Jesus because God has placed you there in their lives.

God sovereignly placed you in a time and in this space for this reason.

He's inviting you to become involved with him in his work.

And that's the reality for us today that God invites you to become involved with him in his work.

And it's not just broad everybody.

He's inviting you specifically to be involved in his work.

What does that look like?

You'll never find God asking a person or someone to dream up what they want to do for him.

He's the one who takes the initiative.

He's not saying, hey, take your dream, bring that to me.

No, he's saying, hey, where am I already at work?

Will you join me there?

Understand what God is about to do where you are.

That's more important than telling God what you want to do for him.

And that's just a slight nuance.

It's a slight shift of going from you-centered to God-centered thinking, you-centered to God-centered living.

Of God, what are you about to do where I am?

That's more important than me telling you what to do.

And so rather than being the speaker, we need to be better at being the listener in our prayer time.

Like sit and be still before the Lord and wait.

Read his word.

Read it out loud.

And every time you open his word, expect to hear from him this direction of what he would have you to do.

He reveals where he's working around us.

God's revelation of his activity is an invitation for you to join him.

His revelation of his activity is an invitation for you to join him.

Like he's inviting you into something greater.

And as he does, we see in Amos 3.7, the Lord God does nothing without revealing his secret to his servants, the prophets.

In the Old Testament, before he would have the prophets do anything, he would reveal it to them first.

Christians, we spend too much time talking about seeking God's will as though it were hidden.

God doesn't hide his will.

His will isn't, so it's difficult to discover.

We don't have to plead to God to reveal his will to us.

He's already revealed his will for us in his word.

We say, You want us to make disciples?

You want us to be fishers of men?

You want us to go and teach people to observe all that you've commanded us and know that you're with us always till the end of the age?

Okay, let's participate in making disciples.

Let's participate in following you.

Let's participate in loving you first and foremost, and also loving those around us.

Like, can we fulfill the great commandment?

Can we fulfill the great commission?

Will we do that?

God is often more eager to reveal his will than we were willing to receive it.

Sometimes we ask God to do things that he's already done.

And so in Amos's day, people were disoriented to God and his desires.

God had revealed his will.

The problem wasn't that they hadn't, the problem was that they had not recognized it or obeyed it.

And Amos declared, God does nothing in the affairs of humanity without seeking one of his servants to whom he will reveal his activity.

But if no one is walking closely with him to hear or receive his word, that's the tragedy.

Jesus was the opposite example.

We just talked about this with the John 5 verses, where he was saying, God, where are you working and how can I be faithful to join you in that work?

How can I be faithful to follow you first?

Are your spiritual eyes pure?

Are you asking God to see what He's doing, to have uh vision to see not just what's physically happening around us, but also what's spiritually happening around us?

Most of your problems are not physical problems, they're spiritual problems.

Because we're spiritual beings made in the image of a spiritual God.

We're not wrestling against flesh and blood, but against power and principalities in the heavenly places.

And so are you ready to hear from the Lord?

Or do you have sin that's clouding your spiritual vision?

Are you uh saying, God, here's my agenda.

Well, can we do this today?

Or are you saying, God, what's your agenda?

What would you have me to do today?

What would you have me to work on?

How can I would you bless these efforts for me to do your work?

The second one says, You cannot know the activity of God unless he takes the initiative to reveal it to you.

Uh we can't just know God's activity.

We need him to reveal it to us.

And that's why we we're saying, hey, you gotta pray, you gotta cry out, you gotta ask God to show you where he's already at work, and then join him there.

How are you gonna do that?

You're gonna do that with a pure heart.

God knows how to bring salvation to your family, your friends, your community, your world.

He looks for people who will allow him to shape them as his instruments.

He looks for us to be willing to say, Hey, mold me as uh the clay.

You're the potter.

Tell me what to do, tell me where to go.

I just want to remain in your hand.

I want to abide with you, Lord.

And if we're clay, moldable, pliable, totally submissive to the will of God, at times we excitedly get to announce, I've discovered, we say, Wow, I this is the way God wants me to work.

And like one of the one of the ways that I think we get tripped up is sometimes we take like the spiritual gifts test and we say, like, oh look, these are my gifts, these are what I'm I'm meant to do.

Okay, it looks like I'm a teacher.

So, James, can you step aside?

I've got to I've got to come and teach now.

I'm gonna come and well, I would say, hey, start in children's ministry, we'll get you going, we'll cut your teeth there, and then we'll go from there, we'll keep growing uh and shaping that.

Uh but rather, what if we say, God, I know that I'm weak, and you're willing to use those who are weak that remain with you?

Would you use me and would your grace be sufficient for me?

Because your power is made perfect in weakness.

And would I boast not in what I can do, but in what you can do through a weak and broken vessel.

He can mold us into whatever he wants.

And when his assignment demands humility, he finds a servant who's willing to be humbled.

When his work requires zeal, he looks for someone who can he can fill with his spirit.

He uses holy vessels.

He finds those who would allow him to remove their impurities.

And some of you, in the season of suffering, God is removing those impurities, he's removing those things that aren't of him through the hardship that you're experiencing, through the difficulties that you're experiencing.

And are you gonna use that to cope in unhealthy ways, or are you gonna use that to say, No, I need you, Jesus?

I'm depending on you and you alone.

So we look to him with cleansed hearts and say, Here I am, Lord, would you send me?

I'll go wherever you would have me.

So are you resisting God's hand as it works to shape you to look more like Jesus?

What impurities need to be removed from your heart for you to be his humble servant?

How do you desire to see God work in the lives of people around you?

He might be shaping you as a tool for his work already.

Uh he's trying how is trusting God's plan for your life better than pursuing your own plan?

How will you submit to his loving work in your life?

And then I love this third uh bullet.

There are some things only God can do.

When you see one of these things happening, you can know that God is at work.

Like when God is doing something that only he can do, you can know that it's God who's the one who's at work.

What are the things that only God can do?

We've got a list of these right here for my note-takers, I'm gonna leave it up for a second.

God draws people to himself.

Only God can draw people to himself.

We can't force somebody to profess Jesus is Lord.

We can't make that happen on our own.

We can cry for our friends, for our relatives, for our loved ones that don't know him yet and say, Lord, would you convict?

Would you draw them to yourself?

And would you do what only you can do?

Because we're not going to win them through a persuasive argument.

Jesus is going to draw them to himself.

The Father is going to draw them to him.

God causes people to seek him.

He's the one who causes that to happen.

He's the one who gives that desire.

God is the one who reveals spiritual truth.

God is the one who convicts the world of guilt about sin, of righteousness, and of judgment.

And because I don't want you to say, wow, James, these are great ideas from this nifty book.

I want to show you from scripture where these are coming from.

So first, God draws people to himself.

Only God can draw people to himself.

We say that in two places.

Especially Jesus in John 12, 32 says, When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all people to myself.

Jesus is saying, I will draw.

And then earlier he had said, No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day.

Jesus is saying that he and the Father do the drawing of drawing people near to him so that they can trust him.

Two, God is the one who causes people to seek him.

In Acts 17, 26 and 27, only God can cause people to seek him.

He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods in the boundaries of their dwelling place.

Like he put you in this certain time, in this certain place for this certain reason, that they should see God, seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him.

Yet he's actually not far from each of us.

God reveals spiritual truth.

Second Corinthians 2 10, 8 through 11.

These things God has revealed to us through his spirit.

For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God.

For who knows a person's thoughts except the spirit of that person which is in him?

So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.

God is the only one who can reveal spiritual truth.

So does your prayer life reflect that you believe that?

Does your prayer life reflect that you're saying, God, you're the only one who can draw people?

You're the only one who can reveal spiritual truth.

So would you do that thing that only you can do?

Because, like, I can try to be persuasive, but ultimately I know that you're the one who has to open blind eyes to see.

You're the one who has to resurrect a dead heart and give it a brand new heart, a heart of flesh, not a heart of stone.

So would you do that thing that only you can do in giving spiritual truth and revealing that?

And in an age where it's the age of knowledge where you can just open up your phone and type into a chat bot or you can type into a search bar and you can get answers quickly.

We need God to reveal spiritual truth to us and not just depend on our own knowledge, on our own resources.

Because if we don't prioritize that, there's this age of information of everything we can want to know is right here at our fingertips, except for these spiritual realities that we hold so dear.

So we should pray and we should wait.

We should say, God, would you bring your kingdom here?

Would you rule in our midst?

So we spend intimate time with God.

We allow him to shape us, we allow him to mold us, we allow him to show us where he's working around us, and then we we say yes, because he's also shaping our heart to be more obedient to him after we've spent that time with him.

And our face isn't going to shine like Moses' face, where people know whether we heard from God and we spoke to him face to face or not.

But we are going to be changed and transformed and softened to be more yielding to our God, which will lead to a greater joy for us.

But that prayer prepares you to be a servant through whom God can bring about his will on earth.

Pray the Lord would bring his reign on earth and that it would start first with the revival in your own heart, you personally.

Don't pray for revival and tailor alone.

Pray for revival to start just with you first, and that God would spread from there, that he would bring that revival to your heart first, and it would continue to extend his lordship as he uses you to reach others.

If someone watched your life closely, your words, your activities, your reactions, the way you spend your time, your energy, your resources, what would they determine is most important to you?

What dominates your thought life?

What do your priorities and thoughts reveal about your will in relation to God's will?

In what current situation do you need your perspective and your desire to be realigned with God's heart?

And then we have three different verses that are coming from John chapter 16, uh, three different parts of this diagram.

John 16 · chapter mention

Number one, uh God convicts the world of guilt about sin, of righteousness and judgment, and that's in John 16, 8 through 11.

It says, When he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin, righteousness, and judgment, concerning sin because they do not believe in me, concerning righteousness because I go to the Father, and you will see me no longer, concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.

God is the only one who can convict.

And so rather than trying to be really persuasive as you're reaching out to somebody, trying to be really persuasive with any of this, instead say, God, would you do what only you can do in bringing conviction where it needs to be?

Would you do what only you can do in bringing righteousness, a desire for righteousness?

Would you do what only you can do and bring a desire to recognize like there is judgment on those who are not walking with you, Lord?

And would you bring your will and your desire instead?

And then we so let's get really practical for the rest of our time together.

One, uh, when you want to know what God's doing around you, what do we do?

Pray and watch to see what God does next.

And then as you're praying and as you're watching, you should also uh make the connection between your prayer and what happens next.

So, like, God, I'm praying and then try to be silent.

Like uh I had an old mentor, uh his name was Joe Davis.

He would say, uh, sit down, shut up, and listen.

It's like his Bible time.

That's how he saw his time with the Lord.

I need to sit down, I need to read God's word, I need to just be quiet and listen because we're really good at talking.

Like all of us love to talk and love to hear our own voice more than we love to listen and to seek to understand.

And that's true also in our prayer lives of we need to instead be good listeners to God of where are you working around me?

What are you showing me?

How can I be obedient to your voice in my life?

And then how can I see that as I go from that place, the other things that are happening around me, they're not just coincidence, they're not just happenstance.

Um, one of the ways we were talking about this in our experience in God group on Thursday is we were talking about uh this how do you hear from God?

What does that look like?

And one of the things that we were uh talking about was uh as we were talking about where to plant a church, uh we we were praying and we were saying, uh, Lord, would you show us where you would have us to plant a church?

And one of the biggest ways uh that the Lord was uh showing us that was that every time that Katie and I talked about a different location to church plant, uh she was like completely out.

Like she was like, no, not our place, not us.

Uh I talked about Leander because I was teaching Leander.

No, not our place.

I talked about Georgetown, I talked about Liberty Hill, I talked about these exciting places that it seemed like the Lord might be drawing us to go, and there was never any sort of pulse or any sort of excitement or any sort of joy for that to happen.

And so I think if you're married, part of the way that God is gonna reveal his will to you of what he wants you to be doing is that he's gonna speak to you and your spouse.

And he's not gonna be leading you to two different places.

That would be very cruel.

But rather, God's gonna say, I'm gonna bring you together, I'm gonna bring you in alignment of here's my will.

And so uh as we're praying and we're seeking locations, this is um man, December 2021, December 4th, 2021.

Uh, I'm praying, I'm saying, God, would you show me where you want us to plant a church?

Because I've I've believed you up to this point.

I've said yes to church planning.

I don't know where you want us to go.

And would you just show us where that might be?

And so there was a lot of things that seemed like maybe too many things to be coincident as as we were seeking the Lord's will for that.

Uh as on Friday night, we're sitting together at home uh with the kids.

The kids had just gone down, uh, and Katie says, Hey, um, you want to go out to Taylor and pray out there?

Let's go pray and let's see what the Lord's doing.

Uh, before she was kind of stopping the church planning conversations, and here she's initiating a church planning conversation, and it's in a certain location.

We say, Yes, let's go and let's look and pray.

And then a mentor, a friend of mine, he said, he texts me as we're driving out there, and he says, Uh, I'm praying for wisdom with church planting and location.

And we're driving to a location to pray about where we're church planting.

He has no idea that we're driving to go there.

Uh, we go and we we see uh one of our favorite things in Taylor is the farmer's market.

There's a Christmas farmer's market.

It's awesome.

We love it.

We get to go and we're walking around.

Uh Katie loves Christmas and loves farmer's market, so it's like cool, lots of cool things that we're seeing here right in front of us uh as we're praying.

Uh I prayed that we would run into somebody that we knew uh while we were here uh because we're praying and we're we're saying, God, would you show us where we would go, where you would have us to go and plant.

Uh and we run into a family uh who's uh the parents of a girl that Katie had discipled and seen her uh get baptized, seen her say yes to Jesus.

She's seen her grow as a leader in Christ at that point, but her parents were the tailors.

And so we're in Taylor and we're praying about where we want to plant a church, and God brings the tailors to to say hi to us at the Christmas farmers market.

Like, okay, God, there's there's some more cool stuff going on here.

Uh as we're driving out, the it's like a stormy issue.

Day and the sun's like shining through the clouds, like over Taylor, which is kind of interesting.

And we're like, this is a just a neat way of like, okay, that could just be nothing.

It could just be, you know, the weather.

But it seems like as we're praying these things that you're showing up again and again and again and again and again, because you want to reveal your will to us, because you want us to walk in obedience to what you've called us to do.

Because you want more churches that preach the kingdom of Jesus Christ.

You want more churches that preach the gospel, that anyone who calls on the name of the Lord could be saved.

Not because we're good enough, but because God has provided a way for us sinners to be saved by grace through faith, through trusting in Jesus Christ alone.

And it it was the easiest conversation that Katie and I had had about church planning over the past two years leading up to that, where it would have been butting heads, tension, all this weird uh we weren't seeing eye to eye for some reason.

It was like, what is happening?

I don't I don't understand completely what's going on here.

And then uh the the last thing I wrote down on this note from back then was uh there was this craftsman guy who was reading a Bible.

He had made like these wooden things to sell, and he's just sitting with his Bible open, just reading right there in the square.

And so it's like a Santa looking dude reading his Bible just unashamedly in the square, and we're like, okay, Lord, like there's a lot of cool things that you're showing.

Now, if you said any of those things individually, you might say, okay, I don't know if that's God speaking to you.

And I'd I'd love to talk more about it.

Uh I think when we ask God to speak, he delights to give us his words.

He delights to reveal his will to us.

He delights to show us where he's already working, but we have to be willing to say, even if it's not what I want, I'll hear you.

Even if it's not what I think is best, I'll hear you, Lord.

We need to be moldable and pliable in his hands.

So, number three, find out what God is already doing.

So part of this is that we had already been praying about church planning, saying, God, we see that you reach people who don't know you often really well through church planning movements.

So we want to be part partakers in that.

And then you can ask questions like probing questions.

And we've got a list of those questions that'd be really good for you to ask.

Uh, and this is especially uh if you're reaching out to somebody, how how can I pray about how God is working in their lives?

So uh, how can I pray for you?

Do you want to talk?

What's the biggest need you have in your life?

What's the most significant thing happening in your life right now?

What do you think God's doing?

What are you learning about yourself through it?

Do you think God's trying to say something to you through this?

Are you burdened?

Is God bringing things to the surface in your life?

God likes to speak to us through these ways.

And then five and six, listen and be ready to make the necessary adjustments in order to join God in what He's doing.

Like we had to sell our house.

We had to move.

We had to leave our church that we've been at for 10 years for us to say yes to planting Taylor Bible church.

We had to we had to make a lot of painful, difficult adjustments to be obedient to what God has said say yes to this.

So you have to be willing to make painful decisions and make painful adjustments to be faithful to God's yes.

And so, church, this big this reality is really sounds really simple.

Join, say yes to God's invitation to join him in his work.

He's inviting you to become involved with him in his work, but I want to just let us rest in these truths.

One, God is the sovereign ruler of the universe.

He reigns over all, he rules over all.

He's been working throughout history to accomplish his purposes.

He doesn't ask you to dream your dreams for him, he doesn't ask you to do your best and try your hardest for him.

He doesn't invite you to set magnificent goals, big, hairy, audacious goals, and then go and reach them.

Just pray that you could say yes to him.

Like that's that's what he wants you to do.

And the miraculous part is what he's gonna do.

The part that only he can do is what he's gonna do.

Like that's his specialty.

And so, too, Gata already has his own agenda when he approaches you.

He's already got in mind what he's going to accomplish because he's the sovereign one who sees into eternity past, into eternity future, he knows what is right.

And both of these truths can sink in.

That the infinitely wise Lord of all creation already has a plan, that the Almighty King of Kings approaches you, he personally interacts with you, his creation to participate in his work.

What a privilege that we get to be a part of bringing his eternal purposes here by just saying yes, God.

He's the one who leads you from being self centered to being God centered.

When he reveals where he's working, that becomes his invitation to join him in his activity.

When he reveals his work to you, that's the time to say yes.

Because delayed obedience is disobedience.