This sermon emphasizes the importance of intimate fellowship with God, highlighting the simplicity of spending time with Him, checking in throughout the day, and longing for His presence like a newborn baby longs for milk. The speakers share personal reflections on how to maintain a close relationship with God, comparing it to a long-distance relationship that requires constant communication and involvement in each other's lives.

So I wanted to take the time today to start by spending some time for us to go through something that the Lord has been laying on my heart And I want to take some of the time at least to speak on it We want to have times of prophecy because that's instructed in scripture But it's also good to have some times in which there are focused times of teaching And instruction so that as a group we really meditate on some of the things If we were to study John again, we'd probably learn a lot more things We can never get done studying God's word So this is not the be all and the end all of the summary understanding of the book of John or anything But as I've been meditating on John chapter 4 and 5 I wanted to share some thoughts that the Lord has laid on my heart Let's come before Him, let's bow our heads in prayer and ask Him Father I pray that your Holy Spirit may be present in this room The words and the thoughts of my mind are meaningless If it is not able to sink in by the power of your Holy Spirit And be blessed so that it can be multiplied and be a blessing to others My 5 loaves and 2 fish can't feed 5000 let alone 20 Lord we really need you to bless us We need you to really be present as I speak these words It will be your Holy Spirit who works and speaks to every heart here That lives may be changed Lord Jesus Help us be attentive to your spirit in Jesus name, Amen I haven't written down thoughts in a long time when I've spoken here But I really hope that these truths will be helpful to many of us It's definitely been helpful to me John chapter 5 verse 18 This is a pivotal verse that I think we all must keep in mind Because this tells me at least 2 main reasons why my Lord Jesus was killed Your Lord Jesus was killed Was crucified on the cross Suffered a heinous death but much more than that suffered separation from the Father And this verse tells me 2 main reasons And I find that very often God is trying to get me back to these main 2 reasons Because if these were 2 things that the people were willing to kill Jesus for But Jesus was willing to lay down his life saying I'm not relenting on these 2 issues They must be very important We see that when a woman was caught in adultery He had a different position than his own spoken word 3000 years ago that he gave through Moses He said neither do I condemn you Go in peace even though the law says stone you Here we see that Jesus was saying I don't care what you do to me You can kill me if you want So there must be some things very important in this and I don't want to touch about all of it Because I want to go through it slowly and we'll get as far as we need to get I want to impress maybe just one area of it Verse 18 it says John chapter 5 For this reason the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him The Israelites of that time were seeking to kill Jesus because he not only was breaking the Sabbath But was also calling God his own father and making himself equal to God There are 2 messages there One Jesus was bringing a new message that said human beings had a completely different and intimate access to God than they ever knew before Just this week God again reminded me You need to hold on to the hand of your heavenly father You have to hold on to the hand of your heavenly father This is not about you getting through your trials on your own strength This is about you holding on to the hand of your heavenly father And the other thing that they killed him for was because Jesus was making people well It says that in verse 15 that he made this person, the man who was sick for 38 years, he made him well Even when it violated what seemed like a reading of the law The Pharisees killed Jesus because they stumbled over their reading of the word of God Is it possible that we too can kill Jesus even as we read God's word? In our attempt to read God's word and understand something we kill, we crucify Christ yet again We crucify the Christ that is in other people The Pharisees are meant to be our warning The Pharisees are meant to be our warning that this is possible This is not something that's only possible under the law, it's happening today It's happened in my life, I'm sure if I'm not careful it'll happen again It'll happen in this church if we're not careful Many Christians are crucifying Christ Paul says that, they're crucifying Christ all over again, putting him to open shame And it's possible if we're not careful that we can kill the Jesus that is trying to be birthed in our own lives In other people's lives, we can stifle him, we can stamp him out We can grieve the Holy Spirit, we can quench the Holy Spirit who's trying to work in us The same thing that the Pharisees did to the physical body of Jesus Physical body was really nothing, it was God who was in that body That the Pharisees really did assault to And we can do the same thing to the Spirit who works within us This week I want to talk just about that important concept that God must be my Father And I want to draw on it with something new that the Lord seems to be revealing to me And that's from verse 17 The corollary to that, where it says in verse 17 My Father is working, this is the way he kind of talked about God as being his Father And I myself am working Now the Jews were really upset Because how dare you say that you are working, God is working When the law clearly states that you shall do no work on the Sabbath That wasn't just a traditional law, that was on the Ten Commandments That was written by the finger of God Don't do work on the Sabbath, you shall keep my Sabbath day holy You shall keep that day of rest holy If we don't understand the way this balance works Of why God was saying I'm working all the time because my Father is working But understanding the principle of the Sabbath in our lives as it applies today We too will make the same problem of stifling the Holy Spirit in our lives We have to understand this balance Turn with me to Genesis chapter 2 Because I want to show you where the principle of the Sabbath came from It goes all the way back prior to the law to very creation This is how important rest was And there are two concepts here, there is rest and there is working The Sabbath indicates resting, not doing any work and then there is working Jesus seemed to be saying, my Father is working, I'm working But yet we see that the principle of rest is all the way from creation God himself ordained it, mandated it In Genesis chapter 2 verse 1 Heavens and the earth were completed, verse 2 By the seventh day God completed all the work which he had done And he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had done Genesis 2.2 And then it says in verse 3 Then God blessed the seventh day, sanctified it because in it he rested from it And from all the works that God had created and made So is rest important to God? Absolutely Was rest important to God when he created it? The first thing God did after he completed his work was he rested Was it because God was tired? No God doesn't get tired What happened right before God rested? The last thing God did was he created man and woman So the first thing God wanted man and woman to do was to rest It wasn't for God to kick his feet up and say I've been busy all week, I need to rest He was ordaining a different principle about the first day of creation for man Does that make sense? Did you understand that? That God created man and woman on the sixth day, on the second half of the sixth day Then God said The first thing we're going to do now that I've created you is we're going to rest Wait, I'm ready to go I just came onto this earth, I'm ready to go and conquer the world and rule the world And have dominion over all of creation and have authority over it, I'm ready I've got all of life within me No, the first thing you're going to do is rest Man and woman Why? What was in that rest? Because the first thing God wanted man and woman to do was to spend time with him The first thing God wanted man and woman to do was to spend a dedicated time with him That was the centering philosophy that was going to drive everything else That was the centering principle that was going to drive the rest of their lives All the remaining six days when God was going to tell Adam, go and take care of this garden Go and have authority over all creation God was telling him, before you do that, you know where you're going to get the energy to do that? From the Sabbath rest you're going to have with me And just to make sure you understand that the law of the Sabbath is over But the principle of the Sabbath still exists Turn with me to Hebrews chapter 3 This is something that brother Lennon also shared with us a couple of weeks ago That talked about the rest He highlighted something different but it's in this passage that I want to talk about Where he talks here about rest And about not hardening our hearts was what the word we heard from Lennon a few weeks ago Hebrews chapter 3 verse 7 Therefore, just as the Holy Spirit says, today if you hear his voice, today And the author will go on to talk about today being really this very day June 28, 2012 Today if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts when they provoke me As in the day of trial in the wilderness, verse 8 Where your fathers tried me by testing me and saw my works for 40 years And said, therefore I was angry with this generation And said, they always go astray in their heart And they do not know my ways as I swore in my wrath They shall not enter my rest These people, it's good for us to recognize who these people are These were the Israelites back in Moses' time But I want you to understand that it's not just those Because in verse 16 always he tells you who these people are Who God was so angry at, he said, I will not let them enter my rest I will not let them enter my rest These are people who had come out of Egypt Verse 16 Had gone through the Red Sea And were in the wilderness Had seen God give the Ten Commandments through Moses on Mount Sinai And they all fell on their faces These are the people who God said, they will not enter my rest Now, the Old Testament picture of Israel going from Egypt to the Promised Land Is a picture of us as Christians We are Christians who leave Egypt, which is a symbol of the world system We are leaving the world And then we go through the Red Sea which is a symbol of our baptism Our identification with the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ on the cross And his life through resurrection We go through the Red Sea And then we are walking towards the place of rest Which is the Promised Land And God said, my intention is not for you to be in the wilderness for 40 years God's intention was for them to be in the wilderness for 2 years or something like that They ended up being 40 years because God said, God was angry at them So, I am talking about you and me Who provoked God, it says In verse 8 Do not harden your hearts as when they provoked me Is it possible that you and I could be provoking God right now? It's for those who have left the world system Have been baptized Identified with Jesus in his death and resurrection And are desiring to go towards the Promised Land I think that's all of us Jesus talks about such people that they provoked God And verse 10 it says I was angry with this generation because they always go astray in their hearts And they did not know my ways You see that he talks about it in verse 9 They saw my works for 40 years But never knew my ways They saw manna dropping from heaven They saw quail given to them They saw 10 pieces of stone with the handwriting of God on it All kinds of things they saw They saw God's works Not the devil's works Not Moses' works God's works for 40 years But they never knew his ways Can we be in a spirit filled church Where we see gifted tongues Where we see healing Where we see prophecies Where we see raising from the dead And God says you know what you're provoking me Because you never knew my ways You saw my works You saw all the things that I was doing I was behind those works But you never knew my ways Because you always went astray in your heart And also think about what these Israelites seemed to as far as I know obeyed Did they ever break the Sabbath The Israelites in the 40 years I don't think so There's no evidence of them doing it I think it would have been recorded if they had disobeyed the Sabbath That's a pretty big deal back then Did they ever take the name of God in vain No indication of that happening Did they ever commit adultery I'm sure they did And then the people were stoned As was the law These were people who were keeping the law Pretty righteously But yet it says about such people That they never knew the ways of God And I fear that in our church For us who are serious Who are leaving Egypt and the world system Who are going away and identifying with the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ Through baptism what that indicates That we can spend a whole lifetime Waiting for his works Studying his word But never knowing his ways You search the scriptures Because in them you think they have life But you're unwilling to come to me that you might have life Was this the problem of just the Israelites No we find the Pharisees having the same problem Jesus was saying you never learn from them And the Hebrew writer is telling me You're not learning from either of them either now The problem is still true That we have most Christians who are probably Maybe seeing his works Maybe seeing his word Reading his word Studying his word But not getting to know his ways It's so important to know God To know his ways That is the way to enter into rest And remember what I said That's the first day of creation In the human race And the first thing all of us need to learn as Christians Is how to be at rest It's because we are not at rest in God That we're so busy trying to do so many things for God That God says I got nothing to do with it It's because we have not understood That working in the garden And cultivating the garden was the second day Not the first day So we get converted We get inspired by messages And evangelistic crusades saying do this for God So we go and try to do things with God But we forget the Sabbath rest That we must have in our lives With God most of all That is why our labor is full of sweating And trying so hard It is not out of a place of rest It's true in the personal life In your victory over sin In my victory over sin And it is true in the corporate life as a church Where we're trying to do so much Apparently small churches are now the hype A lot more people are meeting in small churches Some of my old friends from ministry are calling me now They want to help me build up this church To do so many programs I wonder what a lot of people I ask myself this question Am I at rest? If I am not at rest with God All my working is in vain It is because Jesus Jesus was at rest With the Father I and the Father are one But he was able to say I am always working My Father is always working Because he understood the principle of the Sabbath Which is being at rest with God So how do I get to know God? How do I get to know God's ways? I want to take that passage in Ephesians That we've been memorizing Ephesians chapter 3 I want us to Go through that passage slowly I want us to understand what Ephesians 3 14 through 21 Some of the things that I have learned As I have memorized this Verse 14 and 15 Ephesians chapter 3 That passage we've been memorizing For this reason I bow my knees before the Father From whom every family in heaven and on earth Derives its names He goes on to tell us what we are going to do That we will be strengthened with power through his Spirit That we will be rooted and grounded in love And that we may comprehend the love of God But remember how Paul starts this I bow my knees before the Father If you think If I think that we can get the knowledge of the love of God By studying God's word more By attending a better church By praying more And just spending quiet time It's not going to happen that way You have to bow your knees before the Father Not physically but in your heart It's a constant refrain of Father you are the one who needs to help me with this Do we feel like we've figured out this Christian life And got the right balance And we're getting leeching over sin That we're not bowing our knees before the Father I'm not talking about physically I'm talking about in our heart Do you have that attitude of Paul had that attitude in Ephesians I need to bow my knees because of the Father I could write a letter and tell you that But I know that's no good I need to bow my knees before the Father Whom every family It's your father, my father Every family on heaven and earth derives its name It's not my father alone It's your father too I bow my knees before the Father You're not going to get it from spiritual books Listening to the right series Or going to the right church Bow my knees before the Father That he would grant you According to the riches of his glory To be strengthened with power Through his spirit in the inner man So that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith What is your father going to do When you bow your knees before him And you ask him for bread Will he give you stone No he won't He'll give you the Holy Spirit So we bow our knees before the Father In our hearts saying Lord, I'm living a decent life I'm living a good life But that's not what I'm interested in I want the Holy Spirit That I might be strengthened And when he talks about that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith You know that Jesus Christ is in heaven He's not here on earth So when Paul was praying That the Holy Spirit may strengthen us So that Christ may dwell in your hearts He wasn't asking for Jesus To come to dwell in our hearts Jesus didn't physically come down And dwell in each of our hearts Their hearts are in each of our hearts It's the spirit of Christ It's the spirit that was in Christ But it is Christ Because it's that same spirit That is in Christ that's in us That what motivated and fueled Jesus That pulsing spirit That fueled Jesus Is what's pulsing in us Don't we want that? Don't we want the spirit of Jesus To dwell in our hearts? We have to bow our knees before the Father And ask Have we stopped asking? Because we are maintaining A pretty normal Christian life We are not sitting in the big ones anymore Have you lost that hunger? Have you lost that hunger to bow down In your hearts and say Lord I need you today Christ may dwell in your hearts Look at the reflection of your hearts That's been pulsing Has been Christ dwelling Abiding, residing in your hearts Through faith That that spirit of Christ That had Him react To pretty women Is the same way we are starting to react To pretty women if we are men Are we reacting To tough situations the way Christ Would react? I'm not saying we have to be all the way there Yes no, but are we checking? And when we find the difference We bow our knees before the Father And say Holy Spirit I need your help I don't see us matching I don't see the spirit that's in me Matching the spirit that's in Christ in this situation I'm always, I'm trying to just Get Him down and bash Him up In my heart Outside I'm smiling but on the inside I'm hating Him That's not the spirit of Christ Lord I bow my knees before the Father and say Lord you have to give me the Holy Spirit to help me Verse 17, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts Through faith and that you being rooted And grounded in love This is what I understood from that Because it almost seemed like two separate thoughts But this is The proof for me that Christ Is dwelling in your hearts I'm not telling you whether you're going to go to heaven or hell I'm not talking about that, I'm asking you whether Christ is going to dwell in your hearts Is Christ living in your heart? Christ wants to live in your heart The spirit that was in Christ Christ wants to live in your heart You know what is the proof of it That you will be rooted and grounded In love If I find myself Thinking broken thoughts And thinking horrible thoughts About how God is supposed to How I'm supposed to act in a particular situation Towards others That is a sign That God Is not dwelling in my heart Because I'm not rooted and grounded In love I'm not rooted and grounded In love That is the reason why I sin I want that to sink in The reason why I say Jesus was rooted and grounded in love That is why he never sinned So it is not a Word of condemnation when you sin But it is a wake up call That you're not rooted and grounded In love Then he says in verse 18 And 19 he says So that you may be able to comprehend with all the saints What is the breadth and length and height and depth And to know the love of God which surpasses His knowledge When you are rooted and grounded in love I count my blessings I think about How good God has been to me That has been my secret To learning How to snap out of A bad mood To fight bad moods Fight Just being glum all day And rejoice always The pathway to it Is by counting my blessings And marveling on how good God Has been to me In my present situations whatever it may be Because if I Stop and think about how good God Has been to me When I think about the Lord How he saved me How he raised me up How he filled me with the Holy Spirit How he picked me up and turned me around When I think about the Lord When I think about his great love I'm comprehending the height And the breadth and the length and the depth That's what happens When I'm rooted and grounded in love That the love of God is constantly The Juice that is coming up from the soil That's pumping up this tree But as it says in verse 19 If I keep doing that as I do that All of us probably can attest That we find that the love of God Surpasses knowledge That we can't put the boundary Markers around it That we are overwhelmed By love That we find that The love of God surpasses all of my Understanding and my knowledge and my comprehension Have you Worked To do that? Have you been diligent to Make that Knowing God Knowing God's ways Because God's ways are Ways of love Are we constantly going Back to the great and immense love Of God Trying to draw the parameters How God's going to be in this area That's the height and then in this area That's the breadth and that area that's the length And that area and down and up And left and right in every possible direction Are we doing that? God are you Trying harder to fight that sin Are you having all these strategies to do this And stay away from that What's the first Thing God asked us humans to do Rest Be with me, be with love Have we Flipped the script to where we're not trying to Fight, fight, fight, fight, fight But we're not beginning with the great And immense love of God and how great God has been to us To you specifically To me specifically Not to that other person out there We won't get to know The love of God and comprehend it If we don't spend time with him and talk to him Ariana knows me More than any of you guys Believe that She's two and a half Doesn't have the brain Capacity of any of you She knows me better Than any of you All of you put together, except my wife You know why? Because she spent a lot of time with me You have heard More words from me than my daughter has Just from Sunday morning You've heard more words from me Than my two and a half year old daughter Knows my ways better She knows what I do when I Enter the room She knows what I do when I Wake her up from her nap She knows what I do when I'm trying to put her down From her nap She knows the tricks I play to try to get her To put away her toys Or she'll find that out soon But she responds To the affirmations I give her She responds, she looks Wanting to make me happy She wants me to close my eyes When she's putting away her toys Because she wants me to Have that surprise That she put away all her toys While I was not looking and so time didn't exist That's what she thinks That happens when you close your eyes You understand That difference I want to ask you, do you know God? Do you know God's ways? You've heard so many of my words But this two and a half year old Child knows me better God has hidden These things from the wise and the intelligent And from studying scripture Studying scripture in a blind way And has revealed it to me It's true then It remains true now If we don't learn this secret If we don't maintain this secret We will always go astray And become somebody who watches for God's works Will watch for God's word Will study God's word Will never understand God's ways John chapter 5 See what Jesus says This is, I want you to remember That Jesus was the son of God He was fully God as well as fully man When he says what he says in John chapter 5 Verse 19 I say to you the son can do nothing Of himself unless It is something he sees the father For whatever the father does These things the son Also does in like manner For the father loves the son And shows him all the things He himself is doing, the father will show him Greater works than these that you will marvel We see that Jesus copied God Jesus was not an original You'd like to think He was an original but he himself was saying I'm not an original I was just a copycat Of the father Too many of us are trying to be original Trying to be somebody Jesus was saying I can do nothing I'm just copying I'm copying whatever the father does But I want to stress today What it says in verse 20 Because it says For Now he talks in verse 19 That Jesus is copying the father Jesus says I'll do whatever the father says Whatever he does I do I look at him and I do it exactly When he says two steps to the left I take two steps to the left I think of it like solving the Rubik's cube You know the Rubik's cube That 3x3 cube And you got this jumbled up cube And you, we as humans think Alright let's try to figure this out Maybe I get one side clean and then we can work on that Jesus' way was this Father what do you want me to do Two to the left with your right hand The right most thing Alright two to the right hand But I'm not stuck What do I do next One to the left the bottom one One to the left Whatever I see you doing I'm going to do Why did Jesus have this philosophy Verse 20 tells me Because Because Because For Because The father loves the son That is why I do nothing on my own initiative You know If Jesus said you know why I don't think my own thoughts anymore You know why I've never thought my own thoughts Why I don't think my own agenda And plan my own initiative You know what the reason why I came to that conclusion Because the father loves me so much We want to get to the point where we reflect Jesus He's telling me the motivation With which he reflects Jesus He says because the father loves me so much That's why I don't I just I am so indebted to how much The father loves me I just want to do Whatever he does I've given up trying to build my own agenda What is the state of our hearts I'm not going to ask you did you sin in all of these areas Most of you probably raised your hand Saying no I didn't Did you shatter your wife Most of us probably raised our hand Saying no we didn't Did I shatter my co-workers Most of us are probably going to raise our hand Saying no Did I fight with my Friends at work or school What if I asked you Did you have a heart that genuinely Longed to talk to Jesus This last one week Because the father loves the son That's the secret to you Not doing anything of your own initiative Do we get so caught up With our own agendas And our own plans That we didn't check in With Jesus Because he's a person And we didn't check in with the father Because this is a real love relationship That's going on Because this is day one Of my existence Is intimacy with the father Is rest I'm not asking you Did you wake up at 5 in the morning and spend One hour of quiet time Many mothers can't do that I can't do that I struggle to do that But I'm asking you this Do you check in with God often enough As you were turning your eyes away From lusting after women As you were keeping your mouth shut When you were being provoked Even in spite of all of that Did that mean very little to you Compared to saying Jesus I Want to talk to you I want to know you You think my daughter is playing CDs of me speaking Studying all that Sunday Bedard work and at home going through All my office stuff Studying my handwriting Listening to all my past sermons Is that what she wants to do When she sees me It's very simple We have to become like children Do we have that attitude Towards God Or have we made it all about methodological Study of God's word Or figure out everything You know how important we place God's word In this church We are obeying every small and big command But for us especially Do you have a genuine Heart that longs for Jesus Can we say Like Jesus because the Father loves me so much I'll obey him You know why I obey him Because he loves me so much Is that the reason why we are obeying him If we are not Let us learn from the Israelites Let us learn from the story of the Pharisees Let's course correct It is because of the Father's great love for me And because of Jesus' love Great love for me That I obey That is how I know God's ways If you read in Hebrews chapter 3 Verse 7 he says Today when you hear your voice Do not harden your heart And it came to me in a new way What hardening of the heart was Because for me hardening of the heart Was a rebellious spirit That says God I hate you Or God I want nothing to do with you Or God I want to go my own separate way And it's a rebellious drastic spirit It is definitely that But it's a lot more subtle than that As I studied this passage And as I studied what the Israelites Did and didn't do They kept most of the commandments All the time They never broke the Sabbath They never took God's name in vain They probably never committed adultery All of those who were not stoned Yet they provoked God And God was angry at them And God said I will not let them Enter my rest Because they always went astray In their hearts And never knew my ways They always studied the Bible They were so happy that they didn't sin Like all the unconverted people They were happy that they went to a new covenant church They were happy that they were not Caught up in the health, wealth, Prosperity, whatever, all of these doctrines They comforted themselves in that But they provoked me Because they were so close to the real thing But they never took the time To get to know me We will labor hard Because God wants us to be Doing everything From a source of rest And there are two kinds of people I feel There are the people who are the successful The Taipei, the whatever you want to call it The Bay Area tends to attract a lot of them Who will join the church And the church will raise them up And say you got talent, you got drive You got ideas, let's make you this Let's make you leader of this Or maybe we think that we get our relevance By doing something for God We need to learn how to rest With God We need to learn Let me tell you something my dad Shared in a couple of sermons That has hit me like a thunderbolt He said I don't care if I never speak another sermon In my life Because I am not a teacher of God's word I'm a worshipper You can lie me flat on my bed With no voice left to speak And I'll still be a worshipper Why? Because he'll still have the first day of fellowship with God What we were created To worship him I don't need to teach God's word to do that Many of us are striving Too quickly to try and do something For God We've lost this Jesus This person This precious friend He's never been that to you Never know his ways And then there are Those who will say Oh that's a great message Because I was not planning to do much anyways I'm shy, I want to sit in the back I don't want to do anything I've not succeeded much in work So yeah There are plenty of successful people here Let them take over And the worst thing about it is I comfort myself saying I'm humble How can we know How can we say And sing about the great love of God And sit silent And not want to do something back To give back to God Not because we're trying to curry favour And earn brownie points with him But because there's a well That's springing up to eternal life There's a well, a flood Of love That God has placed in my heart Give me anything to do I'll clean the toilets, let the other people do everything I'll do the most menial task But I want to do something for you To say thank you Not to earn my way into heaven Not to do something great So that I can have a great ministry Just to say thank you Those of us who are shy Or not the Taipei part Who judge the Taipei part Saying oh look at them Trying to get the spotlight Are you saying thank you to God Are you passionate That in the few years God has given you in this life Where you can be a light in the darkness And you can say thank you to God You're sitting on your haunches You're sitting in the back saying God I'm not to Taipei You didn't give me all the gifts of leadership God doesn't want you to leave God wants you to say thank you With passion He died for you If my brother died for you You'll treat me with more gratitude Then a lot of us treat Christ Who died for us That often comes to my mind So there's something in it For every personality type The personality of those who want to Itching to do something and to rest And really understand That Lord I can do nothing Without you I want to be with you And those who are Sitting in the back They can be sitting in the front and be saying I don't want to do much That attitude of saying Lord I just want to Come and attend Is also Evil Is also A horrible attitude Of lack of gratitude Towards what God did for you It's horrible I teach my daughter to say thank you To give her A little meaningless toy Because it's important How much more should you be Passionate to want to say thank you By helping Other people By not wanting to be served but to serve And coming under them and Lifting them up Not hitting them over the head with the bible But lifting them up The other thing that Will come along With such Is knowing God as a Father is You'll have obedience That's what we read in Hebrews chapter 3 That it's faith and obedience Those are the two words that The author of Hebrews says there To whom Verse 18 Hebrews chapter 3 verse 18 To whom Did he swear that they would not Enter his rest but to those Who were disobedient So we see That they were not able to enter because of their Unbelief the author of Hebrews is Tying obedience and faith He's saying your unbelief is the reason Why you disobey and then in case You think that this rest Is something that you just kick back and Just Chant and Scripture or whatever it is In your quiet time in case You think that's that let me Correct right away Hebrews chapter 4 verse 11 The next chapter it says therefore Let us be diligent To enter that Rest so that no one will Fall through following the same example Of disobedience we Enter the rest by Knowing the great love of God Which produces enough Faith that leads to Obedience We put the horse Cart before the horse And we try to obey first It's Knowing the person of God and whose love knowing it So intimately that creates Faith what is faith trust Confidence A real assure that God's gonna do it You'll get that if you spend A lot of time with him I'm not talking about devoted Time 10 hours a day Checking in with him often Taking him At his word It's so sweet to trust in Jesus Just to rest upon his promise Just to know Thus saith The Lord That's enough for me To rest on his promises just to know that God said He said it All things work together All things work together for good He said it it's done It is so sweet to be with Jesus It is so sweet to trust in Jesus It won't happen my daughter will get To know that I'm trustworthy Cause she'll spend a lot of time with me She'll know that I don't Say something and do another And what I promise I'll keep And where I'm broken God is not Can we say we rest upon his promises And say God you said it One thing we cannot do is put a timeline on God God you said it so 2 days You're on the clock That's what I did for many years God you said you'd provide a wife So 29 is the deadline He never said he'd do that God you'll give me your Holy Spirit And I'll have victory over sin in this area today right now No I understood that God was trying to build in me endurance And endurance Produces moral character Which is victory over sin He was, his promises were true He will give me victory over sin He has given me that but he wanted to build in me endurance too Perseverance Romans chapter 5 verse 3 I was trying to short circuit God's way and twist his arm Into giving me what I thought was a holy objective I said I don't kill in my ways But I'm right on time I thus say to the Lord I'll give it to you Have you given up? Have you given up that hunger for God? It's not about Knowing Jesus anymore It is about knowing his word now Or what we're waiting to see His works, God working through you God working through this church And we've stopped wanting to know Jesus personally That is how I will have obedience That's the obedience that pleases God Which is an effortless response To God's head Of course it's going to happen I trust this God so much He loves me so much That's why I do nothing on my own initiative Because the Father loves the Son He shows me Because he loves me so much We have to understand this principle I want to close by asking you a question Maybe a second question now But here's the question I want to ask you If God was to tell you You know what? Don't need to really spend time with me Live a good life Live a holy life Stay away from sin The Holy Spirit will help you for that Giving you the Holy Spirit There you go, you got him now You're not going to do it on your own But the Holy Spirit will pulse through you Raise your children to fear God To honor him Do unto others as you'll have them do unto you Help the poor Try to spread this good news But you don't know how to talk to me Don't need to check in everyday Or ten times a day Maybe once a month Would be great to hear from you Will you listen? Will you be terribly lonely? All of a sudden Will you have lost your best friend? Living a holy life Living a holy life Living such a beautiful sweet life Jesus is becoming a friend to me I'd rather Talk to him ten times a day And even if it means taking A little longer to get some of the things Accomplished in my life I really mean that Talking to Jesus His friendship to me Has become so valuable to me And I fear that I don't miss him As often as I should I can go Day after day I don't rebel against him I don't have any great sin That I'm constantly doing against him When I sin I'm rather quick to get up So gone are the days Where I completely rebel against God 24 hours where I just rebelled against God And said I'm gonna do my own thing I can't remember the last time I did that I honestly can't I spent 24 hours saying I'm gonna do my own thing But I don't reach out to talk to him As a friend I say he's my best friend But I don't talk to him like that That's maybe why our lives Are passionless That's maybe why We have started to focus on our Children, on our career On our job On maintaining houses On our next promotion What we're gonna do when we're gonna retire What our next vacation Is gonna be How God's gonna get This done in my life How God's gonna get this done in my life Glad I'm going to a good church Everything is settled They've stopped the layoffs So my job's good Making sure I Maintain Not sinning in any big way But the passion is gone I fear that For myself I fear that I can so easily be caught up To not learn God's ways anymore Because I don't talk to him Because I don't see him as a friend We'll always reset back to this family This is something that We must pay close attention to I talk to every person here And it could be spouse A husband or wife There could be a wife Who is getting to know God's ways And her husband has stopped And it could be the flip side around Where the husband is getting to know God's ways It was the other way around Maybe 6 months ago But now it's flipped Where the wife's getting to know God's ways And the husband's just lost it He's still the leader of the house Still knows more scripture than his wife Still holds his tongue Maybe better than his wife does But his wife is getting to know Jesus Because she checks in with him often Because she's talking to him a lot more often But I'm sitting as the head of the house Managing the house Making sure all the children are getting fed And learning the ABC's Making sure we're doing ok with church That Jesus is not the primary passion of my life anymore My children are, my career is My job is, my family is My ministry is Can you look Jesus in the eye and say You're the passion of my life You really are Because I've gotten to know you as a friend so deeply That's what he wants to do to you That's what he wants to give you the Holy Spirit for you That you may be rooted and grounded in love That together with all the saints You may know the breadth and length and height and depth And then say I can't even comprehend how much I love him Not some flimsy romantic love But a deep, deep love Of intimacy that says Lord I long for fellowship with you One final thought I want you to think about this Let's say we all go up to heaven And you're ahead of all the rest of us Before, to see Jesus It's a line, imagine there's a line And you're first in line And Jesus is right there What will you do? I'll tell you I'll tell you the biblical answer You'll fall down You'll worship him You'll cast your crown before him And you'll sing Lord you are worthy But I want to go off script for a second And this is a thought that I said Lord I want to have this heart too Not saying I won't do that I will do that There's no doubt about it His holiness will floor me But he's my friend I hope that when I see Jesus He has become such the driving passion of my life That I will run up to him and grab a hold of him And not want Because he's been this friend I saw in a glass dimly I was staring at this man But I couldn't see him too well And now I finally see him Like a long lost dad that I haven't seen for years Is that part of your relationship with Jesus? Or have we segregated And gone so far back That we are stopping to be able to spell God And say God is holy Like the Pharisees did And here comes Jesus saying God is your father You can run up to him and sit on your lap How does that apply to us today? That's how I think it applied to me In this context What will you do when you see Jesus? Will you run up to him and say Jesus you've been my closest friend for 50 years I was talking to you 20 times a day For 50 years, now I see you I don't want to let you go You really need me to go and get you a cup of water Because I want to be with you I have not attained This is the bride of Christ This is the church of Jesus Christ This is the kind of person Who can say we wanted to be like Jesus Will there be that effortless eagerness To want to see Jesus when he comes back That bubbling, bursting Anticipation and excitement That we can say like the apostles meant to say Come soon Lord Jesus Not because man my life is pretty horrible I'm in debt You really need to come soon Lord Jesus That's a different spirit Because I'm like Lord Jesus I'd rather be with you than on this earth The spirit of John That was the spirit of Paul That's the spirit that must be In every single Christian here Otherwise God We will provoke God sooner or later We will know his works We will know his word We will never know his ways God will be angry at us Because we were given so much We were taught so much But never maintained that intimate fellowship And friendship with Jesus Christ Psalm 27 When you said Seek my face My heart said to you Your face I will seek When you said Treat me like your closest friend My heart said I will treat you like my closest friend Do you hear the word of God To you speaking today He wants you to treat him Like your closest friend Think about that verse Psalm 27 When you said Seek my face Three words My heart said to you Your face I will seek Very simple May God help us Bobby, Jeremy Anything you want to add We'll make time for you It's 1130 But we can finish a few minutes late Praise the Lord I feel sometimes like we are We can just barely glimpse How much God loves us And I'm so thankful For the reminder I wouldn't share Except that I feel like what God laid in my heart Is really Closely tied up with what Sandy just shared So I'll share briefly The sense of longing That I was getting Sandy talked about longing Longing for Christ That's something that God laid in my heart this week We had a bit of a challenging week With some feeding schedule And things like that It produced some desperation For sure But one thing God convicted me of Is why aren't you this desperate all the time You're only desperate when you're worried about Evie's health And I said Lord I want to be more desperate And he led me So I said how can I And he just led me to a simple verse That was related to To what We were going through In 1 Peter chapter 2 He says in verse 2 Like newborn babies long for the pure Milk of the word And I feel like in some ways God is making us experts in what it means for a baby To long for pure milk And And so I was just Asking Lord What do you want me to see in this He said I want you to see How I want you to long for me And just how you're seeing Your daughter longing for food I want you to see how I want you to long for me I command you my word Long for the pure milk of the word So that by it you may grow In respect to salvation And so there are a few things I just wanted to share A few things that I observed From Watching her long for milk Because I think it shows us A few things about how we should interact with God's word So one thing One thing that struck me while Cindy Was sharing is that one thing she doesn't do One thing that she doesn't do When she's longing is Produce milk She can't do it She's incapable of producing what she needs And that to me reminds me of that We must depend on God We're incapable On our own We're incapable to work anything apart from him But A few things that I learned besides that First when she's hungry Nothing else will satisfy her You can try Bouncing her, you can try getting her past fire You try Locking her in a room Nothing, nothing else Satisfies And She's She's basically Inconsolable When she's hungry And God said To me, just like that for you When you're hungry, you need to recognize Nothing else will satisfy you Not me, but my word The pure milk of the word Nothing else will satisfy you And then the second thing is Once she's eaten, she doesn't need anything else She's completely at ease And we feel like we get to know Who she actually is Once she's eaten, she's herself So a few times we can actually see her Who she is And I feel like what God said to me is Once you have drank of my Spirit, of my goodness You don't need anything else That's all you need And you'll be yourself, you'll truly find yourself When you have Indulged yourself, when you allow me To lavish myself upon you And then The third thing that God showed me as I studied how babies Long for milk is that No matter how satisfied she seems She'll inevitably Be inconsolably Undistractably hungry again really soon And That reminds me of what Sandy Was saying about just constantly checking in It doesn't matter how full I've gotten Of a dose of God's Goodness In a rapid Turnaround I'm going to be hungry again I ought to be And His pure milk satisfies But it demands greater hunger really soon So one way that This practically Impacted me was this week There were a few times we actually We had a few days just as our Family which should be Joyful, relaxed times But there were a few times that I felt A sense of unease or Dissatisfaction of kind of an inward Fidgeting almost Kind of a longing in my soul And God as I meditated On what He showed me About how babies long for milk He showed me that I need to be Learning to identify those inward Longings as spiritual hunger And When I identify Those feelings as spiritual hunger pains God wants to use those Hunger pains to draw me to Himself And And He's been I've been practicing reminding myself That only God Himself will Satisfy me And so when I feel Unease, when I feel dissatisfaction I say, I'm hungry Lord Only You can fill me And it's just And I want to say something about What is that verse First Peter 2.2 Like newborn babies Long for the pure milk of the word I had always I think In my kind of casual Remembering of this Verse, I had always thought about that He's referring to the Bible You need to drink the Bible As milk But in the context here He talks earlier in the first chapter First Peter about Being born of Not a perishable seed But an imperishable seed And that's the word which was spoken to you That's the word Of which you were born And then even earlier Talking about perishability He talks about you weren't bought With perishable things like silver or gold But you were bought with imperishable The precious blood of Jesus Christ And so to me as I was studying As I was studying this God showed me That longing for His word Is longing for the pure milk What is the pure milk of the word If you think of Jesus as the word In John 1 says the word became flesh And His precious blood Is the word And the seed that was sown The imperishable seed that was sown Which is the good news in our hearts What's the essence of that And the essence Of that pure word is Peace, is rest Is fellowship The essence of the pure milk Of the word of God is He restores our fellowship with God He restores That rest That we just heard so much about And it brought me Great comfort even this week Even as we're driving along Narrow windy roads To say I can have fellowship with God right now I don't have to wait until we get to a Stopping point and I can pull out my Bible Because I need the milk The pure milk of the word Is what Jesus purchased with His precious blood Which is fellowship And I can say right now when I feel unease In the car at this very moment Lord I need you And I'm not going to pretend It's because I'm hungry And I can't wait to have oysters Or because I'm getting car sick It's because I need you And inwardly right now I can direct My spirit to inwardly Communion with you And you know what I found I didn't need anything else For just a couple of hours And then I needed more of it And I really What I'm longing for Is this kind of Pavlovian response That God develops You know like the dogs When they hear the bell ring they immediately go for the food But when I feel a sense of unease It starts producing in me And inwardly turning to the Lord Lord fill me I need fellowship with you right now I'm like a baby I can't produce it on my own I'm inconsolable until I get it And once I've got it I don't need anything else But I'm going to need it again But Lord I come to you right now And I want to be better and better About identifying those inner moments Of unease of dissatisfaction Of whatever it is Not thinking that some other thing will satisfy But only the pure milk of the word Which is Christ himself And the good news is We can have him right now Don't have to wait Don't have to wait until we get somewhere In that sense we have it even better than babies Babies usually have to wait Until it's convenient Until you can pull over We don't have to And the only thing that's keeping us from it Is an acknowledgement that that's what will satisfy us And usually I find it myself I wait too long before acknowledging What I really need Is fellowship with my father And so hopefully God will help us all get better and better About As soon as we identify those hunger pains Saying Lord fill me Lord you're the only thing that can fill me And God help us Bobby do you have anything? Sure I praise God that He made these things so simple The most important things in the Christian life So simple As Sandeep and Jeremy were talking I just wrote down a few phrases Just to To kind of highlight how These things aren't complicated God his will is not to Make this The most wonderful relationship that we have with him Complicated at all But Sandeep referred to Holding the hand of our father And spending time with him The first day I had never noticed that before That the first thing God rested But during that time of rest It was resting along with Adam and Eve Who he created To have intimate fellowship with him Jeremy Just brought up the phrase of constant checking in With God And that's not very hard to do I realize for myself That a lot of times I can complicate such things And over and over in my walk with God I've always asked him Lord keep showing me what it is What intimacy with you looks like Why does it sometimes seem so complicated Almost like Almost like it's hard to keep it up Like a long distance relationship Because I can't see you You're not It's easy to have a relationship with my wife It's very tangible I can talk to her and get feedback And I can spend time with her pretty easily But what does it look like to spend time with you And I was just thinking about this very thing last night As I was laying in bed And I was asking God about it And He revealed something to me that I never thought about before The fact that I met my wife Jessica Online And I started developing very deep affection for her And love for her Before I even heard her voice We had Sent emails back and forth And I read her profile Many times And looked at her pictures Probably every other day And I realized That God gave us everything we need To be intimate with Him And grow in affection for Him Without ever seeing Him And it's so simple Walking with Him and having such an Intimate fellowship with Him I have His profile In my Bible right here And if I have affection for Him like I was growing for Jessica I'll want to keep Going back so quickly Looking at His pictures in there And reading His fellowship And I can talk to Him As Jeremy was saying Constantly checking in with God throughout the day I Remember as we were Emailing back and forth I would constantly check my email And just keep pressing refresh Because I was waiting so quickly for Jessica to respond back And It was such a Wonderful lesson For me to see how I think I see why God's will now Is for me to meet my wife online Laughter Laughter And Yeah I can keep such deep affections For the Lord With Without ever Hearing His audible voice Or seeing Him Sometimes I just feel like I want to hug Jesus And have that physical embrace It feels so good when I hug my son Or my wife But He provides that In other ways And It's such a simple thing This is like the most important thing In the Christian life There's a lot of words in this Bible But it's not a hard walk If we look at these things That Cindy and Jeremy Were talking about These are the most important things Spending time with God And having an intimate relationship with Him I know it can sound repetitive sometimes Because it's the simple gospel That every Christian knows But I don't want it ever to get old to me And One of the things I also realized Last night as I was thinking about this Was that I kind of thought of the question Why do long distance relationships fail? And The answer that came to me was that The husband and wife They're together all the time And they're part of each other's lives They do things together What one person does affects the other And then all of a sudden they split up And they try to keep in touch for a while And they give each other phone calls But now it's the man telling the woman What he has done And what he's experienced in his life And a woman telling the man And pretty soon there's no substance to it There's no bond there anymore And so to me that's telling me that God has to be in my life, involved in it It's going to Very quickly turn into a long distance relationship If all of a sudden I just In my prayer time I'm just talking to God And not listening If God's not involved in my life This constant checking in throughout the day If I just talk to God at night and kind of say God, how was your day? Here was how my day was Then I have a long distance relationship Which won't last But if I'm constantly Checking in all day Then I can truly Have intimacy with the Lord And grow in my affections for Him