WEBVTT NOTE Podcast: Acts 29 Vancouver Episode: Ps. 91 - Staying in the Secret Place Publishing Date: 2024-08-25T06:04:44-07:00 Podcast URL: https://acts29.ca Episode URL: https://acts29.ca/ps-91-staying-in-the-secret-place/ 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:24.440 So we are starting on Psalm 91. We had started on Psalm 91 and so we now go to Psalm 91.1 00:00:24.440 --> 00:00:32.720 It says in Psalm 91.1 that depending on the version you read, if you read the New King James, 00:00:32.720 --> 00:00:40.640 it says, he that dwells in the secret place of the Most High. He that dwells in the secret place of 00:00:40.640 --> 00:00:52.160 the Most High. When you read the message, it says, you who sit down in High God's presence, 00:00:52.160 --> 00:01:05.280 High God's presence. And so most versions will find themselves in between these two. So if you 00:01:05.280 --> 00:01:11.000 read the New King James, it says, he that dwells in the secret place of the Most High. And then the 00:01:11.000 --> 00:01:16.880 message says, you who sit down in High God's presence. And so at the end of the day, the secret 00:01:16.880 --> 00:01:39.720 place of the Most High, the secret place of the Most High is the tangible presence of God. When 00:01:39.720 --> 00:01:56.520 we say tangible, what we mean is, yes, it's not visible, but it can be perceived, felt, recognized, 00:01:56.520 --> 00:02:19.680 savored, engaged, first by our spirit and then with emotions and thinking. 00:02:19.680 --> 00:02:37.360 And finally, there might be manifestations that are physical. This has been the case in the New 00:02:37.360 --> 00:02:46.560 Testament and the Old Testament. So let me say that again. When we talk about the secret place 00:02:46.560 --> 00:02:54.120 of the Most High, we are talking about the presence of the Most High, the tangible presence 00:02:54.120 --> 00:02:59.320 of the Most High. And when we are talking about the tangible presence of the Most High, we're not 00:02:59.320 --> 00:03:04.680 saying that it's visible. God is invisible. He lives in unapproachable light. Anytime he has shown 00:03:04.680 --> 00:03:11.240 himself, besides when Jesus was on earth, it was always in an anthropomorphic way where you talk 00:03:11.240 --> 00:03:17.600 about him showing his hand or showing his brilliant face and things like that. It's never in his full 00:03:17.600 --> 00:03:21.800 presence because we wouldn't be able to handle it. So when we talk about tangible presence, 00:03:21.800 --> 00:03:27.280 we are talking about it is not visible, but his presence can be felt, can be perceived, 00:03:27.280 --> 00:03:35.600 can be recognized, can be savored, can be engaged first by our spirit, because all of us are born 00:03:35.600 --> 00:03:43.160 again in a brand new spirit, and then with our emotions and our thinking and maybe occasionally 00:03:43.160 --> 00:03:48.200 physical manifestations that were common in the Old Testament because they had no other way to 00:03:48.200 --> 00:03:53.960 recognize God and is not as common in the New Testament, but has occurred and therefore is 00:03:53.960 --> 00:04:01.400 a precedent. Any questions? And if we don't know how to do it, it's just because we don't practice 00:04:01.560 --> 00:04:13.360 it. It's not because it's not real. You can hide in God, but the secret place of God is his presence. 00:04:13.360 --> 00:04:20.400 Yeah. One is where you go to for safety and refuge. The other one is where you dwell. Yeah. 00:04:20.400 --> 00:04:36.320 Experiencing him without emotions. I'm saying that even though here on this board, 00:04:36.320 --> 00:04:43.880 we've clinically divided it, we can't clinically divide it. But he's easiest to recognize in our 00:04:43.880 --> 00:04:48.440 spirit because the Bible says in Proverbs 20 verse 27, the spirit of man is the lamp of the Lord. 00:04:48.480 --> 00:04:54.200 What he means by that is I use your spirit to illuminate myself first. It's in your spirit 00:04:54.200 --> 00:04:59.000 that you can instantly pick me up, but it's not like one follows after the other. Right now, 00:04:59.000 --> 00:05:02.960 even as I'm talking, certain things are registering in your spirit, but your emotions are at work too. 00:05:02.960 --> 00:05:09.080 Your mind is at work too. You cannot clinically divide it. It's the entire man. But God is first 00:05:09.080 --> 00:05:15.480 recognized in the New Testament by the spirit of man in whom the Holy Spirit dwells. Like calls to 00:05:16.440 --> 00:05:21.960 deep. It's just that we are so accustomed to seeing things through observable data and 00:05:21.960 --> 00:05:32.220 through processing it that it's not a natural instinct, but it's supposed to be that way for 00:05:32.220 --> 00:05:37.880 us as believers. It's only a matter of practice. It's not that it's not real. It's just a matter 00:05:37.880 --> 00:05:55.600 of practice. Any questions on that? So if you look at Genesis 2.8, that was a secret place. What 00:05:55.600 --> 00:06:00.920 does it say in Genesis 2.8? And then God created a garden, and he called the garden Eden. And he 00:06:00.920 --> 00:06:07.400 took man. God planted a garden, not created a garden. God planted a garden. That's different 00:06:07.400 --> 00:06:15.820 from creating. He had already finished creating everything. And then he plants a garden. So he 00:06:15.820 --> 00:06:21.840 plants a garden as in he planned it. He landscaped it for Adam and Eve. There was thought that went 00:06:21.840 --> 00:06:29.640 into it. And then it says he put Adam and Eve in the garden, and he called it Eden. And what was 00:06:29.640 --> 00:06:36.680 Eden? Eden meant delight, pleasure. It is a delightful place. And he plants them there. That 00:06:36.680 --> 00:06:45.360 becomes their secret place where they walked with the presence of God. You move from there to Exodus 00:06:45.360 --> 00:06:53.200 22, 25 or thereabouts. Let me just get you the scripture. Yeah, Exodus 25, 22. If you go to Exodus 00:06:53.200 --> 00:07:00.600 25, 22, they've just finished building the ark. And on the ark, once the ark was built, it's sitting 00:07:00.600 --> 00:07:07.440 there. And God says, Now I want you to build a lid for it. But here's a prescription for the lid. 00:07:07.440 --> 00:07:15.160 It should have two angels with their wings stretched out this way. And he decided to call that space 00:07:15.160 --> 00:07:20.600 between the two angels on top of the ark, the mercy seat. And then he goes on to say in Exodus 00:07:20.600 --> 00:07:29.640 25, 22, listen, I will meet with you. And I will speak to you from the mercy seat. And I'll tell 00:07:29.640 --> 00:07:36.760 you what to do. And I'll give you commands. It is a secret place. Moses would go there. Moses would 00:07:36.760 --> 00:07:45.320 go there. Numbers 33. You see Moses setting up a tent, and he would set it apart from the congregation. 00:07:45.320 --> 00:07:52.200 Anybody could go there. It wasn't a Moses thing. He called it the tent of meeting. And he would 00:07:52.200 --> 00:07:56.800 enter in there. And it would become the secret place where the presence of God was so obvious 00:07:56.800 --> 00:08:03.000 that all of Israel would watch and just be in awe. And he would go in and he would come out. This 00:08:03.000 --> 00:08:09.920 is the Old Testament. So at the end of the day, when we talk about the secret place of the Most 00:08:09.920 --> 00:08:21.480 High, it is the ability to find and locate yourself in the presence of God. And it can be savored, 00:08:21.480 --> 00:08:25.800 it can be tasted, it can be felt, it can be expressed. It must be seen by others through you, 00:08:25.800 --> 00:08:31.560 though you can't actually see God. Part of the reason God comes to live in a people, 00:08:31.560 --> 00:08:37.080 we sang that song, God with us, God for us, is so that he can make himself visible to others 00:08:37.080 --> 00:08:48.400 through you. Not in his physical form, but in his nature. What a privilege, eh? What a privilege 00:08:48.400 --> 00:08:58.600 to be able to let the world see him through flesh, you and I. And the word became flesh. 00:08:58.600 --> 00:09:04.640 The word is still becoming flesh. Only he's got an entire body now. He's got Chava and Derek and me 00:09:04.640 --> 00:09:21.960 and what's his name sitting next to you, Dhawan? Dilna. Yeah. So one of the things about secret 00:09:21.960 --> 00:09:44.400 place living is secret place living is exclusively relationship based. It's exclusively relationship 00:09:44.400 --> 00:09:58.680 based. As in, it's initiated by God or put into covenant or put into practice by God, 00:09:58.680 --> 00:10:20.640 it's sustained by the Spirit. It's sustained by the Spirit and our yieldedness to him allows us 00:10:20.640 --> 00:10:36.680 to experience the fullness of it. So even if you look at the Old Testament, anybody who actually 00:10:36.680 --> 00:10:42.560 got to say things like or dwell in the secret place or the presence of God, and you'll find David, 00:10:42.560 --> 00:10:52.600 David talks about this often. It says, at your right hand, our pleasures evermore, in your presence, 00:10:52.600 --> 00:10:58.680 there is fullness of joy. If you look at the guys who actually wrote things or understood secret 00:10:58.680 --> 00:11:07.720 place, these were guys who knew how to engage the presence of God. Moses, Adam, David, these are the 00:11:07.720 --> 00:11:12.480 ones who were able to do it. And so one of the things we need to realize is that secret place 00:11:12.480 --> 00:11:20.760 living is exclusively relationship based. The moment you shift that or introduce anything else, 00:11:20.760 --> 00:11:33.040 it's like contamination. And we contaminate this and therefore are not able to savor it to the 00:11:33.040 --> 00:11:37.000 extent. And we'll talk about how we contaminate this. But secret place living is exclusively 00:11:37.000 --> 00:11:42.120 relationship based. It's initiated by God. He's the initiator. He's the author. He's the one who 00:11:42.120 --> 00:11:46.960 makes the covenant. He's the one who says, this is what I'll do for you. This is how I adopt you. 00:11:46.960 --> 00:11:51.880 This is who I will be to you. Everything is initiated by God. There's absolutely no part 00:11:51.880 --> 00:12:01.600 that we play. We don't play a part in this. It's initiated by him. It's sustained by the Spirit. 00:12:01.680 --> 00:12:07.600 The reason he gives us the fullness of his Spirit, fullness of his Spirit is so that we can 00:12:07.600 --> 00:12:13.480 continuously be sustained in the secret place. As in continuously have the presence in us and 00:12:13.480 --> 00:12:22.400 the presence around us. And I've said this more than a year ago, periodic awareness of his presence 00:12:22.400 --> 00:12:28.720 was never God's design for man. The periodic awareness of presence was never God's design 00:12:28.720 --> 00:12:35.760 for man. It was never God's design that you get periodically aware of me when you worship or when 00:12:35.760 --> 00:12:41.760 you have an intense moment during your quiet time or you suddenly see me do something for you. That 00:12:41.760 --> 00:12:47.760 is not how I wanted you to exist. That is not how Adam existed. That is not how Moses existed. That 00:12:47.760 --> 00:12:52.120 is not even how David existed. That these guys were in the Old Testament without a covenant. I 00:12:52.120 --> 00:12:58.200 want you Chava to be someone who does not have these periodic times of awareness of me. I want 00:12:58.200 --> 00:13:04.720 you to be constantly engaged with me which is why I sustain it by the Spirit by putting in you myself. 00:13:04.720 --> 00:13:14.760 And we may be at different places in this process but my God we are all in this process. So don't 00:13:14.760 --> 00:13:22.400 be discouraged at what you're missing out on. Be encouraged that tomorrow this can be even more 00:13:22.400 --> 00:13:36.080 real than today. And it's sustained by the Spirit. Where do we play a part? Our part is to the extent 00:13:36.080 --> 00:13:43.760 that you want to taste it. To that extent you can yield and it'll become tastier. It'll never be 00:13:43.760 --> 00:13:49.560 held back from you. Never be held back from you. The presence of God will never be held back from 00:13:49.720 --> 00:13:58.080 you. Sin will not drive away the presence of God. Hear me. Sin will not drive away the presence of 00:13:58.080 --> 00:14:08.920 God. You do not speak Psalm 51 anymore. Cast me not away from your presence, O God. Take not your 00:14:08.920 --> 00:14:19.320 Holy Spirit from me. Does not apply to the New Covenant. Even sin does not take away the presence 00:14:19.320 --> 00:14:25.160 of God. What it does is because of the relationship you have, because it's solely relationship-based, 00:14:25.160 --> 00:14:30.080 what happens is relationship is broken and relationship can be fixed but presence is 00:14:30.080 --> 00:14:40.800 never removed. Never. The presence is even more powerful when sin happens because the presence of 00:14:40.800 --> 00:14:46.820 God wants to draw you back into the place that you always belong which is where? Which is in his 00:14:46.820 --> 00:14:56.980 embrace. If one looked for God after sinning or in sin, you would find him even stronger than usual 00:14:56.980 --> 00:15:03.300 because he is there to draw you back. Whether he draws you back with extravagant love or whether 00:15:03.300 --> 00:15:13.580 he draws you back with discipline, he will be there to draw you back. Any questions on that? 00:15:17.580 --> 00:15:25.220 So what is the opposite of exclusive relationship-based living that we sometimes 00:15:25.220 --> 00:15:34.860 engage in that contaminates secret place living? One, reliance on self. You have to put yourself 00:15:34.860 --> 00:15:41.820 in the place of a little child with your father. That's how we have to think this. It becomes real, 00:15:41.980 --> 00:15:50.940 presence becomes real if I can be childlike. If I get grown up, presence kind of morphs. But if 00:15:50.940 --> 00:15:58.820 you think like a child, this becomes very easy. So here are the things that rob a child of presence. 00:15:58.820 --> 00:16:20.260 The first one is reliance on self. Second, rule keeping to gain favor or protect from danger. 00:16:20.260 --> 00:16:47.020 Three, appearances. As in being a certain way for the sake of people and God. It's what's called 00:16:47.020 --> 00:17:01.540 false piety. Four, works, which goes back in a sense to rule keeping. But works is when good 00:17:01.540 --> 00:17:13.260 works gain favor. This is what every other religion in the world is based on. Every other 00:17:13.260 --> 00:17:23.820 religion has that at its center. Five, perfection. Wanting to be, wanting to get it, 00:17:23.820 --> 00:17:35.700 wanting desperately to get it right. And if you don't, it's devastating. 00:17:43.260 --> 00:17:53.580 Or in other words, all this can be put together under the word. That's what it looks like. 00:17:53.580 --> 00:17:59.300 Therefore, you find suddenly that some of us, all of us at some point or the other, 00:17:59.300 --> 00:18:11.020 are legalistic because this creeps in. So you have to think like a child. A child misses out on the 00:18:11.020 --> 00:18:15.100 presence of the father when the child decides that I'm going to rely on myself. I'm going to 00:18:15.100 --> 00:18:23.020 do this myself. I don't need you. Because this is solely relationship based. Presence is always 00:18:23.020 --> 00:18:30.820 because of a relationship. Two, rule keeping to gain favor or to protect from danger. As in when 00:18:30.820 --> 00:18:35.820 I am keeping rules because I'm afraid of what will happen if I don't. Or if I'm keeping rules 00:18:35.820 --> 00:18:43.260 because I think I'll get something if I do. Both are not helpful. It damages the relationship. 00:18:43.260 --> 00:18:59.180 It's a warping of the relationship. Three, I was wondering what he was coming up to do. 00:19:05.820 --> 00:19:17.220 Third, appearances. Appearances. Where it is possible to show something on the outside that 00:19:17.220 --> 00:19:21.740 I'm not. One of the things we have to be careful, guys, is when we meet people first, try not to 00:19:21.740 --> 00:19:26.460 pretend. Because how we pretend is the impression they take away. What they give us and they don't 00:19:26.460 --> 00:19:32.340 give us is based on their first impression. Try not to make a first impression. It's a bad idea 00:19:32.500 --> 00:19:37.340 to make a first impression. Let them find out who you are over a period of time because that's a 00:19:37.340 --> 00:19:52.980 real you. Pardon? Yeah, but I'm talking about you creating a first impression. I don't want to 00:19:52.980 --> 00:19:59.980 create a first impression. Yeah, you have to hear my words. You have to create a first impression. 00:20:00.020 --> 00:20:06.500 You should avoid creating a first impression. Because we do that. We are told to do that. One 00:20:06.500 --> 00:20:14.340 must get a good impression of you. It's not worth it, guys, because you either end up getting what 00:20:14.340 --> 00:20:17.740 you don't know how to handle or you give people an impression of you that's not true and they'll 00:20:17.740 --> 00:20:22.340 find out later or you end up not being given what you should be given because over a period of time 00:20:22.500 --> 00:20:34.420 they'll find out how solid you are. Appearances. Being a certain way for the sake of people. 00:20:34.420 --> 00:20:41.020 Sometimes it's called false piety. We do it with God too, eh? We do it with God. Not all of us know 00:20:41.020 --> 00:20:48.540 how to be starkly naked before God. Starkly honest. This is how I really feel about you. 00:20:48.540 --> 00:20:59.580 Not all of us can write Psalms like David. This is the truth. And then the next one is works when 00:20:59.580 --> 00:21:07.380 good works gain favor. That I don't think is a problem, at least as far as I know amongst us. 00:21:07.380 --> 00:21:12.980 And then the last one is perfection. Wanting desperately to get it right to the point that 00:21:12.980 --> 00:21:19.820 if you don't it's devastating. It is so important to be free from that. So important to be free from 00:21:19.820 --> 00:21:28.820 that. When it's a relationship, getting it right is less important. When it's not a relationship, 00:21:28.820 --> 00:21:34.700 getting it right is super important because everything depends on that. These are the things 00:21:34.700 --> 00:21:42.620 that contaminate presence, guys. This is why you love your children's drawings. They are so clumsy, 00:21:42.620 --> 00:21:47.500 they are so useless. Your fridge is crowded with them. You want to get rid of it. You wish you 00:21:47.500 --> 00:21:51.900 didn't have grandchildren. And then you keep sticking it. You buy another fridge. You put 00:21:51.900 --> 00:22:00.740 another. It just goes on and on. Why? Because it's just a pure relationship that you have with these 00:22:00.740 --> 00:22:08.220 grandkids and kids of yours. Yesterday, Yaya and Phoebe drew something and it's stuck on my fridge 00:22:08.220 --> 00:22:22.020 now. At some point I'll have to remove it. It's pretty bad. But the point is you don't. Why? Because 00:22:22.020 --> 00:22:27.420 it's based on relationship. These are the things that contaminate presence. Go ahead, Anne. 00:22:27.420 --> 00:22:38.660 Appearances. Being a certain way for the sake of people. What's the question? 00:22:38.660 --> 00:22:57.100 I'll give you one from my life. I would go to certain churches and then they would ask me to 00:22:57.180 --> 00:23:02.380 lead worship. I would know the song I need to choose because the Lord would say, 00:23:02.380 --> 00:23:06.020 this is what I want you to choose. But I would also know the song that I could really sing 00:23:06.020 --> 00:23:11.900 that would affect people, that would even make them weep. And so it was important for me to move 00:23:11.900 --> 00:23:16.260 the congregation, to show them the kind of worship I can lead. And I would choose a song that I wasn't 00:23:16.260 --> 00:23:21.500 supposed to lead. It's to create an impression. We do that. People would come and tell me how 00:23:21.980 --> 00:23:27.660 was. Eddie, same thing. I was in a church. Very clearly the Lord tells me, I need you to preach 00:23:27.660 --> 00:23:32.140 this message. And I'm looking at all the other speakers and they're preaching messages that are 00:23:32.140 --> 00:23:38.420 so amazing that everybody's clapping and shouting hallelujah. And I immediately knew if I spoke what 00:23:38.420 --> 00:23:46.020 God asked me to speak, I would get no hallelujahs. And so I changed and I gave, I spoke a really 00:23:46.020 --> 00:23:49.900 rah rah message. Everybody started shouting hallelujah and praise the Lord and all this stuff. And 00:23:50.300 --> 00:23:55.180 Eddie meets me and Eddie comes and tells me, I want you to, God wants you to know that when 00:23:55.180 --> 00:24:02.540 you try to copy others, at best you're a lousy copy. Why don't you stick with God is what God 00:24:02.540 --> 00:24:06.820 has told you. You have a uniqueness. Can you express that? Or do you want to be like others? 00:24:06.820 --> 00:24:16.260 Appearances. Jesus gave a parable. He said there was a rich man and there was a poor man. The rich 00:24:16.260 --> 00:24:21.500 man stood before the Lord and he said, Oh Lord, I have done this and I have done that and the 00:24:21.500 --> 00:24:25.260 other. And the poor man stood on the other side and he said, I'm a worm. I'm worth nothing. 00:24:37.260 --> 00:24:43.700 Yeah, that's a completely different context. Yeah. Try not to create appearances. 00:24:43.700 --> 00:24:55.260 It's a side point, but it's an important point. Your inadequacy is God's greatest ability to display 00:24:55.260 --> 00:25:01.900 himself. Always remember that your inadequacy is your greatest strength. For when you are weak, 00:25:01.900 --> 00:25:10.140 he and his presence are ridiculously strong. The world does not allow that. The world says otherwise. 00:25:10.140 --> 00:25:17.940 But always remember this. Your inadequacy is your greatest strength and God's greatest weapon. 00:25:17.940 --> 00:25:22.900 Because when you are infirm, when you are weak, when you come with your knees trembling, 00:25:22.900 --> 00:25:29.500 when you have broken speech, when the way you speak is not worth anything, 1 Corinthians 2 00:25:29.500 --> 00:25:35.780 immediately goes into effect where Paul says, I did not come to you with any manner of oratorial 00:25:35.780 --> 00:25:42.140 skill or strength. I came to you in trembling and in fear. And yet God began to then take my 00:25:42.140 --> 00:25:47.260 infirmity and he began to demonstrate the power of the spirit through my weakness. 00:25:47.260 --> 00:26:04.460 When we go down this route, we lose, we lose our connection with presence. It's very hard to practice 00:26:04.460 --> 00:26:07.620 it because the world says otherwise. Sorry? Yeah. Yeah. 00:26:35.140 --> 00:26:50.780 Yeah. It is counterintuitive. It is an upside down kingdom. These things cancel kingdom culture. 00:26:50.860 --> 00:27:12.300 This is what legalism looks like. It is a practice that's based on a self, effort and not relationship. 00:27:12.300 --> 00:27:25.780 Okay. So when we look at secret place, we said it's presence. And what are words used for presence 00:27:25.780 --> 00:27:33.980 in the Bible? Kabod, Hebrew word for the weight of his glory. English, glory. Greek, doxa. Hebrew, 00:27:33.980 --> 00:27:42.700 shekinah. These are all words that mean the same thing. What's presence? What's the Hebrew word 00:27:42.700 --> 00:27:50.980 for presence? Panim. What does it mean? It's the same word used for face. He that dwells in the 00:27:50.980 --> 00:27:57.420 secret place of the most high is basically he that dwells in the face of the countenance of God. And 00:27:57.420 --> 00:28:02.660 it is never taken away. We've done that chair thing where someone's sitting on a chair and God's 00:28:02.660 --> 00:28:06.340 facing him. You're upset with God and you turn your chair and before you turn your chair, he's 00:28:06.340 --> 00:28:10.940 already facing you. Doesn't matter which way you turn, he's facing you. Who came up with this first? 00:28:10.940 --> 00:28:16.300 Psalm 139. What did David say? It doesn't matter where I go. I take the wings of the morning, 00:28:16.300 --> 00:28:22.540 you're there. I hide myself in the deepest depths, you're there. Wherever I go, you turn up. At the 00:28:22.540 --> 00:28:27.700 end of the day, the secret place is the ability that you and I have. Even if it's for five minutes 00:28:27.700 --> 00:28:34.900 a day. Start there man. What are you doing? You are one of those rare species on earth who gets to 00:28:34.900 --> 00:28:41.940 see the countenance of the living God, invisible yet tangible, face to face for five minutes out 00:28:41.940 --> 00:28:52.100 of 24 hours. Wonderful are you. Tomorrow five minutes, 20 seconds. It keeps increasing. You 00:28:52.100 --> 00:29:00.020 think you won't change? 1 Corinthians 3, 18. We behold him face to face and we are changed from 00:29:00.020 --> 00:29:07.060 glory to glory. We behold him face to face and we are changed from glory to glory. In intense 00:29:07.060 --> 00:29:14.740 moments of shame, in intense moments of condemnation, in intense moments of guilt, in intense moments of 00:29:14.740 --> 00:29:22.020 feeling unworthy, go to that one place that you usually don't go to because again we go back to 00:29:22.020 --> 00:29:27.540 legalism. Fix it before you come to God. How do we fix it? We fix it Christianly. What does Christian 00:29:27.540 --> 00:29:34.020 fixing look like? Oh Jesus, I'm a worm. I really messed up. Oh forgive me. I don't deserve it but 00:29:34.020 --> 00:29:39.420 please oh God have mercy. Cleanse me. You go through that fix it. But what if you beheld his face? You 00:29:39.420 --> 00:29:47.340 would still find a face that favors you just like a child is favored by the parent. Be it through 00:29:47.340 --> 00:29:53.540 extravagant love or be it through discipline. The faith does not change and I wish I could remember it. 00:29:53.540 --> 00:30:08.180 I wish I could remember it always because that's what it means. Panjim, faith, presence, same thing. 00:30:08.180 --> 00:30:20.660 The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you. The Lord lift up his 00:30:20.660 --> 00:30:30.660 countenance and give you peace. Do you realize that he has never turned away his favor-filled 00:30:30.660 --> 00:30:40.980 face from you? Never. We just forget because every other relationship in our life turns their face 00:30:40.980 --> 00:30:55.060 away right? We superimpose that on God. So when you are in the secret place, the air or the atmosphere 00:30:55.300 --> 00:31:19.580 or the environment is electric with these things. Right living or righteousness, peace, joy, power, 00:31:19.580 --> 00:31:34.780 presence. The air is electric with it. The air is electric with it. As in if you could touch it, 00:31:34.780 --> 00:31:43.060 it would go grrr. You know what happens when you touch static or you touch a live wire? Everybody 00:31:43.060 --> 00:31:55.300 together. It's a Greek word. Betty, you want to try it? No? Okay. So the air is electric with it. 00:31:55.300 --> 00:32:05.900 As in it's impossible to be engaged at even a diluted level of the presence of God and not 00:32:06.060 --> 00:32:17.100 have this desire to be upright. It's not possible. It's not possible to be engaged even at a even 00:32:17.100 --> 00:32:24.860 at 30% 40% with the living God and his presence and not have a desire to be upright. It's not 00:32:24.860 --> 00:32:32.500 possible to not then have shalom begin to crowd into your life. The kind of shalom, the kind of 00:32:32.500 --> 00:32:38.260 peace that comes with a sense of rest like you're restful in it. It's not something you have to hold 00:32:38.260 --> 00:32:47.500 on to. Joy, power, presence, these go together. This is the evidence, this is the litmus test 00:32:47.500 --> 00:32:54.700 of whether a person is walking with presence in presence and whether a person can savor this, 00:32:54.700 --> 00:33:00.340 can express this. This is the litmus test. And there are moments like this in our lives every week 00:33:00.340 --> 00:33:07.300 where all of us experience this. Sometimes all fight together and when you experience that, 00:33:07.300 --> 00:33:16.820 that's let heaven come. That's what it looks like. I don't want us to think that this is something 00:33:16.820 --> 00:33:22.900 we've got to keep pushing towards. I'm saying we already have experiences of this. Just increase 00:33:23.900 --> 00:33:30.340 it. Because if you do, people will see. One of the jobs here on earth is to telescope God 00:33:30.340 --> 00:33:39.860 so others can see him not as a distant star but as someone close by, telescoping God. And a person's 00:33:39.860 --> 00:33:46.900 maturity and walk with God is often displayed in these characters being evident. Upright walking, 00:33:46.940 --> 00:33:57.380 peace as in restful peace where you're in rest. Joy, not because things are going well but because 00:33:57.380 --> 00:34:06.740 you are full of hope. Joy is impossible without expectation. Joy is impossible without expectation. 00:34:06.740 --> 00:34:16.100 When hope is gone, joy is gone. Habakkuk 3.19 just talks about that, right? Though the fig tree will 00:34:16.100 --> 00:34:22.620 not blossom, I'll do cartwheels of joy because I know it's going to happen. Power and presence, 00:34:22.620 --> 00:34:31.620 which then means that if these are the things that define presence, it then means that the kingdom 00:34:31.620 --> 00:34:40.740 of God is really, and this Jesus said it so it's not some new discovery, the kingdom of God is 00:34:40.740 --> 00:34:59.540 really the presence of God in your life or in our midst. Where do we read this? We read about it in 00:34:59.540 --> 00:35:10.980 1 Corinthians 14 20 and Romans 14 17. What does it say? The first one says the kingdom of God is 00:35:10.980 --> 00:35:19.340 not about talk but is about power. What does Romans 14 17 say? The kingdom of God is not about eating 00:35:19.340 --> 00:35:23.740 or drinking what we should eat, what we should drink. It's not about that. It's about righteousness, 00:35:23.940 --> 00:35:31.940 peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. So at the end of the day then, the kingdom of God is really the 00:35:31.940 --> 00:35:38.700 presence of God in your life or in our midst. So when we say let heaven come, that yours is the 00:35:38.700 --> 00:35:47.460 kingdom, yours is the glory, one of the ways to make it evident is by cultivating this. And this 00:35:47.460 --> 00:36:09.300 happens when you and I increasingly begin to dwell in presence. Any questions? Yeah, how do we explain 00:36:09.300 --> 00:36:15.140 to a non-believer that they can now experience this by having them follow you? Let them savor it 00:36:15.140 --> 00:36:21.700 through you. This must be made flesh. You have certain things you're struggling with in terms of 00:36:21.700 --> 00:36:27.820 you're still waiting for physical healing, right? Can you in the midst of that trust the power of 00:36:27.820 --> 00:36:35.500 God, display joy, and be at rest? Do you know what that does mark when people hear of what you are 00:36:35.500 --> 00:36:54.460 waiting for and how you behave that way? Just... Sorry, go ahead. Can there be demonic oppression 00:36:54.460 --> 00:37:01.140 that can stop somebody from enjoying this? Yeah, but then we also have help, right? We can go and 00:37:01.140 --> 00:37:07.140 ask for help because there'll be others who can help us. So there might be demonic oppression 00:37:07.140 --> 00:37:12.500 that can prevent us from in certain areas walking upright because there's a stronghold that has 00:37:12.500 --> 00:37:21.540 become an addiction. There might be deep depression instead of joy. There might be torment instead of 00:37:21.540 --> 00:37:30.440 peace. But the beautiful thing is why are we given the body? Why the gifts in the body? Why the equipping 00:37:30.440 --> 00:37:39.320 roles in the body? Why leaders in the body? Why? Only one answer. That the Spirit of God who dwells 00:37:39.320 --> 00:37:45.160 in our midst is sufficient through her, through you, through you to help me overcome these so 00:37:45.160 --> 00:37:50.460 that I can engage in presence without handicap. 00:38:15.460 --> 00:38:23.060 Yeah. If someone says... The question Mark is asking is if you meet someone who's witnessing and they say they do not believe in God, 00:38:23.060 --> 00:38:30.100 and they have never felt him before, what do you do? There's so many different answers. I'll give you one that 00:38:30.100 --> 00:38:40.660 happened recently. Don and I met somebody who is not a believer who needed help for someone who was 00:38:40.660 --> 00:38:50.960 demonically oppressed. So here's God's solution to it. God is saying go deliver them, and once you deliver them, 00:38:50.960 --> 00:38:59.160 tell them who did it, and then ask them if they want me in their lives. Show them who I am. Show them the power I have. 00:38:59.160 --> 00:39:05.960 Show them the peace I can give. Show them the joy that I can bring into their lives. Show them presence. And once you do, 00:39:06.260 --> 00:39:14.960 now let them ask them the question, do you want this man or not? As in this man, Christ or not? This is something God does 00:39:14.960 --> 00:39:26.460 regularly. So the person wrote back saying... The person wrote back two things. I came to your church and I found the place 00:39:26.460 --> 00:39:33.660 so peaceful and you guys such a family that I've never experienced it before in any religious place. And the second thing the person 00:39:33.760 --> 00:39:43.360 said was, I just want you to know that the person we brought for prayer has been marvelously different this week. Can we 00:39:43.360 --> 00:39:54.160 meet again so that certain other things can be removed too? Show them. With us, because we have the presence of God, 00:39:54.260 --> 00:40:06.060 it's always show and tell. Jesus used to do the same thing. Go tell John that the gospel is being preached to the poor, 00:40:06.060 --> 00:40:12.660 the sick are being healed, demons are being cast out, the dead are being raised, and lepers are being cleansed. Go tell him that. 00:40:13.460 --> 00:40:15.260 Because John was asking, are you the real deal? 00:40:24.860 --> 00:40:33.360 We have the most amazing thing in the entire earth. We have presence. We are carriers of the presence of the living God and it 00:40:33.360 --> 00:40:39.560 never, never goes away. Never goes away. Never goes away. 00:40:43.160 --> 00:40:51.360 Sin does not drive it away guys. If sin drove it away, I'd have only about 15 minutes of the Holy Spirit every day. 00:40:53.360 --> 00:40:57.960 So what prevents me from getting into this? What prevents me? 00:41:03.060 --> 00:41:04.160 From getting into 00:41:04.160 --> 00:41:21.960 the Holy Spirit. And what forces me out of the secret place? 00:41:21.960 --> 00:41:36.860 I have these two pictures of, hey Brandon, can you throw it up on the screen just as a diversion before we go on? 00:41:36.860 --> 00:41:47.760 That's Tentan. And then I found someone else. Isn't there a similarity? Just go back again. 00:41:52.060 --> 00:41:58.260 Then I realized I've actually met him. There. There he is. 00:42:00.060 --> 00:42:01.460 All righty, going back to... 00:42:06.660 --> 00:42:13.460 I mean, people who actually watch this on video will wonder why that interruption came. 00:42:13.460 --> 00:42:22.760 What prevents me from getting into and what forces me out of the secret place? 00:42:23.660 --> 00:42:30.360 And the answer is not sin. That's the first answer. Please, please understand this. 00:42:30.360 --> 00:42:35.760 That it does not make the presence of God disappear. It's not an Old Testament pattern. 00:42:36.660 --> 00:42:42.360 Broken relationship can be fixed, but his presence does not leave. Just be absolutely sure of that. 00:42:44.460 --> 00:42:48.160 If we could get really sure of that, we would hurry back to God quickly. 00:42:48.160 --> 00:42:50.860 We wouldn't need two days to be good before we get back. 00:42:57.860 --> 00:43:05.960 Sin created separation in the Old Testament. The blood of Christ has forever cemented unity. 00:43:05.960 --> 00:43:13.360 Sin breaks down relationship, but that's the idea of confessing. 00:43:13.360 --> 00:43:18.860 The idea of confess your sins to God was not because God needs to be informed of what you've done. 00:43:18.860 --> 00:43:24.560 He knows it anyways. It is an admission that there is a violation of relationship. 00:43:24.560 --> 00:43:29.660 Things are broken down between you and me, Dilna. So let's talk. Why do you like cats? 00:43:29.660 --> 00:43:33.860 And then the discussion begins. And eventually it gets reconciled. 00:43:34.360 --> 00:43:40.160 So at the end of the day, know that there is no separation from his presence. 00:43:46.660 --> 00:43:50.160 So if it's not sin, what is it? I'll probably end with that for today. 00:43:53.660 --> 00:43:55.560 The emphasis is on the word probably. 00:43:56.260 --> 00:44:08.760 The reason we find it hard to sometimes get into the secret place and find it easy to be forced out of it is 00:44:08.960 --> 00:44:26.960 This is the main reason why I am not able to stay in presence. 00:44:26.960 --> 00:44:31.960 There's this deep desire inside us as humans to control life. 00:44:32.160 --> 00:44:39.160 Deep desire to control life. Let me read it as I've written it. 00:44:39.160 --> 00:44:46.160 It's my desire to control life so that everything is ordered, everything is predictable, everything is balanced. 00:44:46.160 --> 00:44:56.660 Because of my desire to control, I worry, I get frustrated, I become bitter, I need attention, I feel guilty about not doing more. 00:44:56.860 --> 00:45:04.860 I fret to find another way. And my mind becomes a battleground of doubt, conflict, anxiety and distrust. 00:45:04.860 --> 00:45:12.860 Let me write that down. It is a reason. This is what drives us out or prevents us. It's not sin. 00:45:14.860 --> 00:45:16.860 So let me write that down. It'll take a while. 00:45:17.060 --> 00:45:34.060 It is my desire to control life so that everything is ordered, predictable. 00:45:34.060 --> 00:45:37.060 As in I know what's going to happen then. 00:45:41.060 --> 00:45:44.060 Ordered, predictable, balanced. 00:45:44.260 --> 00:45:46.260 There are no surprises. 00:45:50.260 --> 00:46:10.260 Because of my desire to control, I then worry, get frustrated, become bitter, need attention. 00:46:14.260 --> 00:46:17.260 Feel guilty about not doing enough. 00:46:17.460 --> 00:46:19.460 I fret to find another way. 00:46:19.660 --> 00:46:21.660 I fret to find another way. 00:46:21.860 --> 00:46:23.860 I fret to find another way. 00:46:28.860 --> 00:46:44.860 And my mind becomes a battleground of doubt, conflict, anxiety and distrust. 00:46:45.060 --> 00:46:53.060 What is lost? An awareness of presence. Presence is not lost. An awareness of presence is lost. 00:46:54.060 --> 00:46:55.060 Any questions on this? 00:46:55.260 --> 00:46:57.260 Yeah, we... 00:47:02.260 --> 00:47:03.260 Yeah. 00:47:05.260 --> 00:47:11.260 What is lost? An awareness of presence. Presence is not lost. An awareness of presence is lost. 00:47:11.260 --> 00:47:13.260 Any questions on this? 00:47:18.260 --> 00:47:20.260 Yeah. 00:47:20.260 --> 00:47:22.260 Yeah. 00:47:22.260 --> 00:47:41.100 Yeah. Yeah. So we'll talk about that. We will. Any other questions on this? Especially the 00:47:41.100 --> 00:47:46.660 last line really gets me, that my mind becomes a battleground of doubt, of conflict, of anxiety 00:47:46.660 --> 00:47:57.740 and worry. And this is what has me lose an awareness of the presence of God in me, around me, for me, 00:47:57.740 --> 00:48:04.060 just kind of disappears. It's not sin that drives it away. It's not sin that prevents me from entering 00:48:04.060 --> 00:48:22.300 and it is this. Any questions? Any comments? This is what happened to the disciples in the boat. When 00:48:22.300 --> 00:48:30.460 the water began to rise, the storm happened. This is what happened to them. And if you say that this 00:48:30.460 --> 00:48:36.420 is not your situation, that you have no anxiety, no conflicting thoughts, no doubt, no worry, 00:48:36.420 --> 00:49:06.300 then blessed are you, men. So we are able to, we need to understand that the secret 00:49:06.460 --> 00:49:34.260 place and kingdom is only, is increasingly experienced as I surrender the need to control. 00:49:34.260 --> 00:49:42.580 There's a need, there's a craving that we have as humans to control. The secret place and the 00:49:42.580 --> 00:49:50.780 kingdom is increasingly experienced as I surrender the craving to control, as I surrender the craving 00:49:50.780 --> 00:49:59.700 to control. One of the things that's happened to us since the fall is that the chief aim of our 00:49:59.700 --> 00:50:21.660 natural life is controlling the next second minute, hour, day. And we do it in two ways, 00:50:21.660 --> 00:50:36.460 and these two ways are important. The first one is by exerting our strength to affect or create 00:50:36.460 --> 00:50:49.580 outcomes. And the second one, which is as sometimes even more sinister, is ignoring 00:50:49.580 --> 00:51:19.020 the responsibility of knowing his will on earth as it is in heaven. By sweeping, I'll 00:51:19.020 --> 00:51:43.620 go over it again, by sweeping everything under the sovereignty rug. So our natural life likes 00:51:43.620 --> 00:51:49.580 controlling every second, every minute, every hour, every day. If we can somehow control it, 00:51:49.580 --> 00:51:56.780 how do we do it? Either by exerting our strength, your strength, to affect or create outcomes. What 00:51:56.780 --> 00:52:01.460 can I do to create this outcome tomorrow? What can I do to create this outcome two hours from now? So 00:52:01.460 --> 00:52:07.780 that's one way we do it. The other way we do it is even more sinister. We just completely ignore 00:52:07.780 --> 00:52:14.620 the responsibility of trying to find out what God wants. And that then allows us to go whatever 00:52:14.620 --> 00:52:20.180 will be will be. And everything gets swept under the God is sovereign carpet. And then you don't 00:52:20.180 --> 00:52:27.940 have to worry about anything. You can just coast. Both are ways of control. One is an exertion of 00:52:28.940 --> 00:52:39.860 is an abrogation of responsibility. Both serve the same end. And neither is something that God 00:52:39.860 --> 00:52:50.900 wants. This is complacency to the nth degree. This is control to the nth degree. And both are 00:52:50.900 --> 00:53:11.820 terrible. This creates martyrs. This creates intimidators. Both are forms of control. I can't 00:53:11.820 --> 00:53:29.580 hear you. How do you surrender to what in a healthy way? Yeah, the thing is, who am I surrendering 00:53:29.580 --> 00:53:36.500 to? I'm surrendering my need of control to God saying, I need to control this. I need to control 00:53:36.500 --> 00:53:43.660 tomorrow's outcome. But I'm going to come to you and surrender my need to control. It is the craving 00:53:43.660 --> 00:53:49.140 I have. It's a desire I have to make sure that tomorrow works out a certain way. That is what 00:53:49.140 --> 00:53:53.540 I'm surrendering. And I'm surrendering it to him. And what does that look like? Jesus, I have a 00:53:53.540 --> 00:53:58.860 desperate need to control things. And I'm saying to you, I'm going to take my hands off this and 00:53:58.860 --> 00:54:04.220 trust you and trust you on many different levels. First, I'll trust you as a good responsible father. 00:54:04.380 --> 00:54:11.220 Second, I'll sustain it by faith, by recklessly depending on you. Those are the first two steps. 00:54:11.220 --> 00:54:16.660 Raphael was asking, what are the first two steps? The first two steps of this, I come to you, 00:54:16.660 --> 00:54:22.620 the only way I can surrender to you is if I actually think you are a responsible good father. 00:54:22.620 --> 00:54:28.060 My problem, O God, is I don't think you're a responsible good father. So help me, Holy Spirit. 00:54:28.060 --> 00:54:31.460 And then the Spirit of God takes you to the Scriptures. And he begins to show you the nature 00:54:31.460 --> 00:54:35.140 of the Father. He begins to show you the nature of how responsible he is, how much he can be 00:54:35.140 --> 00:54:42.780 trusted. As you read the Word, strength will rise. Trust will come. Faith will come. Because it only 00:54:42.780 --> 00:54:48.740 comes through the Scriptures. And then once you get to the responsible Father that I can surrender 00:54:48.740 --> 00:54:54.740 this craving to, the next thing is, can I sustain it by faith, by recklessly depending on you? When 00:54:54.740 --> 00:55:00.020 every time I want to touch it, I want to touch it and can I not? That is done by faith. These two 00:55:00.020 --> 00:55:07.660 are the essential first steps. And if this is not possible for you, it's just because of our skewed 00:55:07.660 --> 00:55:13.960 understanding of the Father, which can be fixed because we have the Word and the Spirit. Both are 00:55:13.960 --> 00:55:21.500 available. Both are available. And there's nothing greater to change humans than the Word and the 00:55:21.500 --> 00:55:27.980 Spirit. The entire earth is going to be changed. You have been changed. You are born again by the 00:55:27.980 --> 00:55:34.260 Word and the Spirit. He can continuously do it. He doesn't stop at salvation. You have changed so 00:55:34.260 --> 00:55:36.460 much. It was the work of the Word and the Spirit. 00:55:36.460 --> 00:55:58.420 Not really, because when he talks about not being able to do the question, is this a quandary that 00:55:58.420 --> 00:56:03.700 Paul is speaking about in Romans 6, 7 and 8? Not really, because in Romans 7, Paul is speaking as 00:56:03.700 --> 00:56:09.580 a Jew. He's saying, Who will save me from this wretched life? What kind of a man am I? He's not 00:56:09.580 --> 00:56:16.180 talking from the perspective of a man who is now alive and filled by the Spirit. Therefore, it ends 00:56:16.180 --> 00:56:20.980 with, What a wretched man I am. Who will save me from this life? And then Romans 8 opens with the 00:56:20.980 --> 00:56:26.260 crescendo, Therefore, there is no condemnation for the Spirit of life in Christ has set me free. So 00:56:27.260 --> 00:56:35.140 in that sense, no. But it is possible to be born again and to be caught in this quandary, where it is 00:56:35.140 --> 00:56:47.740 impossible for me to hand this over to God because if I hold it, I'll fix tomorrow. But if you want 00:56:47.740 --> 00:56:53.780 me to surrender this to you, Nick, I've got to know that you're a responsible, good father. And 00:56:53.780 --> 00:57:00.940 I'm not convinced of that. And if I'm not convinced of that, I need to go back to the word and go over 00:57:00.940 --> 00:57:13.740 it again and again till I'm convinced that he's a good father. It's surrendering the need to control. 00:57:23.780 --> 00:57:36.660 Yeah. Yeah. If you read Matthew 6, looks like a hippie lifestyle. I mean, it's a hippie who would 00:57:36.660 --> 00:57:43.580 say, Look at the birds of the air. And Woodstock had a few birds. And then they would go and pick 00:57:43.580 --> 00:57:50.740 daisies off the Woodstock floor and say, Look at the flowers of the field. Yeah, it is this. When 00:57:50.740 --> 00:58:00.140 you read Jesus's words in Matthew 6, they are highly irresponsible. Here's the thing. If you read 00:58:00.140 --> 00:58:10.660 Matthew 6, here's a conclusion you get. This is what God is saying. I am not saying do not prepare 00:58:10.660 --> 00:58:17.900 for tomorrow. I'm not saying do not make provision for tomorrow. Do that through prayer, through the 00:58:17.900 --> 00:58:24.020 instructions I give you, through diligence. But here's what he's saying. Dhillna, do not worry 00:58:24.020 --> 00:58:31.260 about tomorrow. It is the Gentiles who worry about tomorrow. But you are the children of God. Do not 00:58:31.260 --> 00:58:41.100 worry about tomorrow. That's where the hippie and Dhillna differ. Did you go to Woodstock? No. Okay. 00:58:41.100 --> 00:58:49.380 Just checking. Oh, you weren't born? Or you were just born? Yeah. I feel like it's the one thing I 00:58:49.380 --> 00:58:55.020 missed out in life. Yeah, but that's a different thing. Oh, he's trying to prove that he's younger. 00:58:55.020 --> 00:59:10.140 Okay. You and I are in the same age bracket, by the way. Yeah, for another year. Guys, the Gentiles are 00:59:10.140 --> 00:59:14.180 characterized. We used to be Gentiles, so it's not some kind of a racial term. The Gentiles are 00:59:14.180 --> 00:59:20.460 characterized by worry. The sons of God are characterized by faith. And God's intent throughout 00:59:20.460 --> 00:59:28.100 Matthew 6 is do not worry. Do not worry. Why are you worried about this? Am I not a good father? And 00:59:28.100 --> 00:59:34.700 the good father is not just limited to provision. It is limited. It covers everything. And the thing 00:59:34.700 --> 00:59:39.280 that we do, the thing that we are taught from when we are a kid is, hey, make sure you control the 00:59:39.280 --> 00:59:44.480 outcomes. Make sure you affect the outcome. And God is saying, can you not do that? Can you let go of 00:59:44.480 --> 00:59:52.960 it knowing that I'm a father? Can you as a child trust the outcome to me? Can you stop? Can you kill 00:59:52.960 --> 01:00:09.000 the need or the craving to control? And the only way you can kill it is if you know he's a responsible 01:00:09.000 --> 01:00:17.040 good father. And two, if you can sustain it by faith. Why sustain it by faith? Because you can 01:00:17.040 --> 01:00:22.240 think of a few incidents in your life where you felt you trusted and nothing happened, and now you're 01:00:22.240 --> 01:00:34.000 scared to trust him again. Sustain it by faith. We get an opportunity every week, every day. I'll stop 01:00:35.000 --> 01:00:40.960 here. Any questions, guys? Do you think you can try and practice this? It only happens to practice, 01:00:40.960 --> 01:00:49.520 eh? Don't pamper your natural life. It's dysfunctional kingdom living. Don't pamper your 01:00:49.520 --> 01:00:59.240 natural life. Don't take the other route, too. I hate this route. Just ignore trying to find out 01:00:59.240 --> 01:01:03.080 what God wants. Just keisarasara. That's not Christian living either. 01:01:03.080 --> 01:01:29.240 Do you, if you wasted time controlling the outcomes of life for years and now you begin to 01:01:29.840 --> 01:01:35.160 have this eureka moment and you decide from now on I'm going to straighten life out, do I waste, 01:01:35.160 --> 01:01:44.440 do I then lose the years that I've gone by? Sometimes yes, often no. When is it a yes? It's 01:01:44.440 --> 01:01:51.360 a yes when it's deliberate. There are people that have been told too often, change, change, 01:01:51.360 --> 01:01:57.560 change, fix, fix, fix. Prophets were sent, people were sent, writings on the wall were sent, 01:01:57.600 --> 01:02:04.440 scriptures were sent, will not change. Then there is the possibility that I miss out. But when people 01:02:04.440 --> 01:02:09.240 don't know, when the people are ignorant, when people are innocent, when people haven't heard, 01:02:09.240 --> 01:02:15.440 when people have tried and failed, the Bible says the years that the locusts have eaten, 01:02:15.440 --> 01:02:26.360 God will restore. Favor doesn't go away, presence doesn't go away. But stubborn resistance to the 01:02:26.360 --> 01:02:32.800 truth is always followed in First Thessalonians by a delusion that takes you off course. And even 01:02:32.800 --> 01:02:39.280 then favor doesn't go away, his countenance doesn't go away. He says, Jacob, this, don't talk to me 01:02:39.280 --> 01:02:43.360 about it again like he said to Moses, you ain't going to the promised land, but I'll show you 01:02:43.360 --> 01:02:50.080 everything else. So there are times when that happens. But that's if I'm continuously resisting 01:02:50.080 --> 01:02:58.040 him, continuously refusing to change. But otherwise, he always restores the years the locusts 01:02:58.040 --> 01:03:17.920 have eaten. That's a speciality restoration. Any other question? Comment? Okay, let's pray then. 01:03:17.920 --> 01:03:41.760 The things I control or the things I want to control in my life for God, 01:03:41.760 --> 01:04:00.360 either because I want a certain outcome and I'm not sure you will deliver, or I can't trust you, 01:04:00.360 --> 01:04:14.960 either with the timing or the urgency. And I usually have the means to fix it and getting 01:04:14.960 --> 01:04:29.320 done. I have the power to make it happen. You're showing this image of Jesus being tempted by the 01:04:29.320 --> 01:04:38.880 devil who said to him, you can turn these stones into bread. Jesus had the power, but he refused to. 01:04:38.880 --> 01:04:57.200 How can we do this, oh God? You're saying it's not, you're saying think of the positive reinforcement. 01:04:57.280 --> 01:05:05.320 What you mean by that is, Jacob, Church, you know what my presence is like. You've tasted it. And 01:05:05.320 --> 01:05:16.040 when you taste it, I see the satisfaction you have. Nothing thrills you more than that. Nothing 01:05:16.040 --> 01:05:23.160 satisfies you more than that. There's nothing you long for more than engagement and the sudden, 01:05:23.200 --> 01:05:33.560 absolute knowledge of my tangible presence. I've seen you enjoy it. Don't you want that more? 01:05:33.560 --> 01:05:52.680 Isn't it worth it? Isn't it worth everything? We, oh God, say yes. Yes, it's worth it. I will never 01:05:52.840 --> 01:06:03.000 take away my presence from you. My countenance, my faith will always be there. I'm not leaving you. 01:06:03.000 --> 01:06:19.280 I am not leaving you. It's worth giving up things for that. We want it, oh God. I speak on behalf of 01:06:19.320 --> 01:06:29.640 everyone here. We want it. We want the satisfaction of engaging, encountering, walking, expressing 01:06:29.640 --> 01:06:44.480 your presence. Upright walking, peace, joy, power, presence, knowing the favor of your face. Gosh, 01:06:44.480 --> 01:06:52.880 Lord. It is so worth it. That is what you want us to take away. For the sake of that, 01:06:52.880 --> 01:07:01.880 isn't it worth giving up the craving to control? Because every time you crave to control tomorrow, 01:07:01.880 --> 01:07:09.000 you are going to jettison yourself out of that space and you're going to find it hard to enter it. 01:07:14.480 --> 01:07:42.480 I'm just going to ask Dilna and Derek to come up and just pray and conclude. And I'm going to ask 01:07:44.480 --> 01:08:06.640 Kezia to come up and Dilian to come up and just pray and conclude. Come. Is Kezia here? 01:08:06.640 --> 01:08:12.000 Okay. You guys start. If they come, they come. 01:08:12.000 --> 01:08:37.000 Thank you, Abba Father, for this teaching, Lord. Especially for me, Lord, as a working as an 01:08:37.000 --> 01:08:49.880 accountant, trying to learn how not to control the plan. Lord, in the things Lord, help me to just 01:08:49.880 --> 01:09:02.440 learn to trust. Help us to learn to trust you more and more, Lord. We want to trust you more, Lord. 01:09:02.920 --> 01:09:16.600 Lord, let us be children guided by faith and show us how to be responsible also at the same time 01:09:16.600 --> 01:09:32.840 with what you have given us. Thank you, Abba. Let us take time to spend time with you in the 01:09:32.840 --> 01:09:42.640 secret place. And Lord, help us to stop worrying about our sin, but our desire to please you, 01:09:42.680 --> 01:09:51.760 Lord. Just time to spend time with you and know you are God. Help us to be still, Lord. Help us 01:09:51.760 --> 01:10:03.280 to be still in our secret place experiencing your wonderful presence. And Lord, help us just to be 01:10:03.280 --> 01:10:17.440 renewed and wake up. Renewed and be in wonder. Wake up with a sense of wonder and awe. And Lord, 01:10:17.440 --> 01:10:25.760 help us to move from periodic presence to continuous presence. We pray all these things 01:10:25.840 --> 01:10:41.360 in Jesus' name. Amen. Abba, we want to lay down legalism. Sometimes these are words that seem 01:10:41.360 --> 01:10:50.480 far away, but it's very easy to see how things creep into our lives sometimes. So Father, 01:10:51.440 --> 01:11:00.400 as a people, we come and we leave behind things that are not of you, but sometimes appear right. 01:11:02.480 --> 01:11:12.160 It is the right word on the outside, but it is not of the Spirit. So Father, we choose to respond 01:11:12.160 --> 01:11:20.640 to what you taught us today. To leave behind, Father, we don't want to birth Ishmaels. 01:11:22.160 --> 01:11:30.160 We want to birth Isaacs. Isaacs are those we want to birth, not Ishmaels. So Father, we leave behind 01:11:30.160 --> 01:11:41.440 our fleshly striving and the ways of our mind. And instead, like it was said today, Romans chapter 8, 01:11:41.440 --> 01:11:49.760 we cling on to the ways of the Spirit. So even for a second or two here, Father, right now, 01:11:51.120 --> 01:11:58.800 we lay down those things and we cling on to the law of the Spirit, the life of the Spirit 01:11:59.440 --> 01:12:09.280 as a church, so that our words are words that do not fall to the ground. So that our prayers are 01:12:09.280 --> 01:12:18.000 prayers that bring heaven to earth, so that we become a people who can take, you can go into 01:12:18.000 --> 01:12:27.040 Egypt and bring out a people to become part of the bride. Father, that's what we want. And then 01:12:27.040 --> 01:12:37.120 last thing, Abba, help us to develop a lifestyle where we don't control things. It's not a one-time 01:12:37.120 --> 01:12:45.040 decision, Abba. It's something we have to always go back to, to always consider our ways. And so, 01:12:45.040 --> 01:12:55.120 Father, give us this ability to never control, to put things down and to say, I can't, can you help 01:12:55.120 --> 01:13:02.640 me? I don't want to, can you help me? I don't want to do it in my strength, can you help me? Have I 01:13:02.640 --> 01:13:09.760 not, have we not, Father, over the years learned that the best we can do is still so bad? But when 01:13:09.760 --> 01:13:24.000 you are with us, you help us. So help us to leave our ways and to cling on to you, in Jesus' name. 01:13:32.640 --> 01:13:53.600 So, without actually imagining a face, can you try and close your eyes and know the favor and the face of 01:13:53.600 --> 01:14:01.200 God? Try not to, you can't put a face to God, right? I mean, you might think of someone kind, 01:14:01.200 --> 01:14:07.120 someone like me, and that's the best you can do. But so don't think of a face. Think of, think of 01:14:07.120 --> 01:14:16.480 what it would look like if you, if he shut our eyes and what is it to, what is he, what does he 01:14:16.480 --> 01:14:24.720 look like in terms of his favor, his delight, his countenance right now towards you? Become a child 01:14:25.040 --> 01:14:34.080 and then you will see. Become a child first, eh? Throw down your grown-up-ness, become a child. I'll 01:14:34.080 --> 01:14:43.120 stop talking in a second. Become a child and then you will see. Not a face, but you will know what 01:14:43.120 --> 01:15:00.080 it is to have his delight, his countenance, his face upon you. 01:15:13.120 --> 01:15:40.320 And when your eyes are upon this child, 01:15:40.720 --> 01:16:01.520 your grace abounds to me. Oh Lord, you're beautiful. Your face is all I seek. 01:16:01.520 --> 01:16:21.680 And when your eyes are upon this child, your grace abounds to me. One last time. Oh Lord, 01:16:22.640 --> 01:16:45.040 you're beautiful. Your face is all I seek. For when your eyes are upon this child, 01:16:45.600 --> 01:16:51.120 your grace abounds to me. 01:16:54.960 --> 01:17:01.120 I pray that whatever you gave us just now will be what we'll walk in for the next few days. 01:17:02.640 --> 01:17:07.920 And if we lose sight, that will come back quickly and seek your face again. 01:17:07.920 --> 01:17:26.800 In Jesus' name, amen. If you need prayer, as usual, there'll be people here to pray for you, yeah?