Mike Bickle emphasizes the importance of being obsessed with Jesus, who is not just a means to an end but the magnificent source of our spiritual fulfillment. He challenges the church's limited view of Jesus as merely a forgiver and healer, urging believers to seek a deeper, awe-inspiring relationship with Him. Bickle highlights that true transformation comes from a revelation of God's nature, which requires a hunger and commitment to pursue Him wholeheartedly. He encourages believers to treasure the knowledge of God, emphasizing that this pursuit will cost everything but yield the most profound rewards. Ultimately, he calls for a shift in focus within the church to make Jesus the center of our lives and ministries.

Father, we come before you in the name of Jesus and we ask you for the spirit of wisdom and revelation. We ask you for the manifestation of your Son's glory to touch our heart. In Jesus' name, Amen. Well, this is session one on a series of Jesus, Our Magnificent Obsession. Now, that's the goal of our life, that we would be obsessed with this man. And the reason that's our goal, because he's worth it. His worth demands this kind of response. But that's not so obvious to the people of the Lord, that he is the most unique being, fully God, fully man. And he longs to reveal himself to us in a way that touches our spirit. I don't mean just to reveal his forgiveness, or his healing power, or provide for us economically, certainly those things. But he wants us to encounter the awestruck wonder and fascination with who he is. Paragraph A, now the term magnificent obsession is an oxymoron. It's a contradiction of terms. And the reason because almost every obsession of the human heart is very destructive. It causes pain, and grief, and loss. However, there is one obsession. There is an obsession with one man that liberates us, that brings us into our destiny, that fills us with spiritual pleasure, that crowns us with glory. And that obsession with this most unique man, again, fully God, fully man. However, so much of the church is so distant from this lifestyle, and this kind of reality. Paragraph B, the challenge, is that so many, when they think of Jesus, so many in the church, they think of him in terms of the one that forgave them, and he did. The one who stamped their passport, so to speak. So now they go to heaven instead of hell. That's awesome. I love being forgiven, and I love going to heaven instead of hell. But they've, that's how they've heard him preached and presented. And then some groups add a little bit to it. They say, hey, he does more than forgive. He actually heals. He provides. He guides. He blesses your circumstances. He's a God that does things for you. And that's awesome. I love it when God gives me supernatural provision, economically. I love healing. I love prophetic direction. But beloved, there's so much more to this man than that. Jesus is not just a means to an end. He is. He is the way, the source of so many blessings. But he's much more than that. He is the most indescribable man, filled with splendor, magnificent in his being of who he is. And he longs to share this with us. But he will only give it, this inside of himself, progressively to people who hunger for it. So much of the church, it's not that they're disinterested. They don't even think about it. They've never heard of the Jesus that's more than the forgiver and the healer, the magnificent one. It's the best-kept secret in the church. So few are focused on it in preaching. So few are focused on it in their personal lives. It's the greatest, best-kept secret in the church. But we want this secret to be made known. We want people to consider it normative that they're going after the encounter of his heart, not just the blessings in their circumstance. But we don't have to give up one to have the other. We can have them both. Paragraph C. The premise of this class, and even of this message today, is that there's no aspect of the grace of God that powerfully transforms the heart or satisfies the heart like the revelation of God revealing God to the human spirit. There is nothing that changes our emotions from boredom and depression and guilt and compromise than when God reveals God to our spirit. It does something to us. It shifts our emotional chemistry. It changes the way we feel on the inside when God the Holy Spirit reveals God the Father or God the Son to us. Paragraph D. Philippians chapter 3 verse 8. Paul is the premier example of this, of this premise. Paul's testimony of why he was so indedicated, he gives it to us in Philippians 3. He tells us why he gave up everything so gladly. He said, I count everything lost. I gave up everything. I gave up many legitimate things that were not in themselves harmful at all or sinful because I wanted a life of radical focus and pursuit of this man. And he tells us why. He goes, I gave it up. I sacrificed many things because of the excellence of the knowledge of this man, because of the magnificence of who he is. Paul said, I'm awestruck by what I see about him. I've told the Lord over the years, it's a prayer, I said Lord let me see what Paul saw and I will be able to live like he lived. Because there's a direct correspondence between what we see in Jesus and how we respond to him. The great lack of response in the body of Christ to Jesus is a symptom of the low view and a low amount of revelation that the body of Christ has of Jesus. If we would see more, we would respond more. The responding is a symptom of not seeing. Paul said, I see the excellence of the man. He's indescribable in who he is. Beloved, there's no one like him and I'm so looking forward to this class to just take week after week of focusing in on, focusing on these unique dimensions of his personhood. Not just what he does but who he is. But I'm in no means minimizing what he did for us and what he does for us. I love that. I love that part of his leadership. It's part of who he is. But I love to be lost in the splendor of this man. I mean this infinite love and wisdom and power. He's so interesting. He's so dynamic. He's so intriguing. Plus much, much more than that. He didn't just stamp my passport. He will fascinate us forever. But I don't want to wait till the resurrection. I want that to grow in my experience even now. 1st Corinthians chapter 2, verse 10 to 12, Paul says the Spirit, the Holy Spirit searches the deep things of God's heart. The Holy Spirit discerns the deep things of the Father's heart and the deep things of Jesus. And what he does is that he gives these deep things to us. He offers himself as an escort to us into the deep things of God's heart. I picture him coming along and grabbing me by the arm and saying, I will escort you to a place you cannot go without me. I will escort you to the place you long most for. If only you would encounter it, you would want more of it. Jesus gave us the Holy Spirit as an escort. He's a guide. He will take us step by step. But not only will he show us the way, he will empower us to see and feel the truth about Jesus. Because we can't see or feel the truth. I mean more than the forgiveness, more than the provision, more than the healing, more than the economic breakthrough. I'm talking about the truth of who he is and the richness of his being. We can't experience it in a way that moves us without the supernatural help of the Holy Spirit. In John 16, verse 13 and 14, Jesus spoke of the Holy Spirit with great confidence. He said, let me tell you something about him. I've known him from eternity past. He will guide you. He will escort you. He likes this. This is what he longs to do. But he will only escort you into the truth to the degree that you're hungry for truth. If you're satisfied with the assurance of forgiveness, that's all you'll understand. If you're satisfied with healing, some prophetic direction, a little bit of anointing for ministry, that's all he'll give you if that's all you want. But he's coming to take all that's in my heart and give it to you, not just a part of what's in my heart. He's coming to take what's in my heart to give to you. Beloved, the Holy Spirit knows more about Jesus than we can imagine. The Holy Spirit longs to bring us on this lifelong treasure hunt into the riches of Christ Jesus. Jesus said in John 16, verse 14, he will glorify me. He's coming to glorify me. Now the way that the Spirit glorifies Jesus is by revealing Jesus' heart to us so that we're awestruck, we're filled with wonder, we're stunned by it. Now there's a number of different ways that God is glorified by biblical definition. And one of the ways of which God is glorified is when the human heart is awestruck and stunned by the wonder and the fascination of who he is. And that's how Jesus describes it here. He will glorify me by taking the things about me and absolutely blowing your mind with them if you want them. But he'll glorify Jesus in another way. He will make Jesus the centerpiece of our heart and our life if we want him to be. The Holy Spirit will use his power to give us the ability to be locked into Jesus in this way, to make him the center stage of our life. Well that's what he's doing in the church. There's a great shaking going on in the church right now. Two things are happening. The Holy Spirit is wrestling with the leaders of the church to put Jesus center stage. And the devil, the evil one, is coming to assault Jesus even by the leaders of the church. Paragraph G. There's a great battlefront in the kingdom right now. And the battlefront in the kingdom is the truth about Jesus. The Holy Spirit, he's contending, he's wrestling with the leadership of the church. Make Jesus the magnificent obsession of your life and of the people you're connected to. Present him in this way, though you don't have to use those terms. He's raising up a people that will have allegiance to Jesus, loyalty to him. But not just loyalty, they will be absolutely fascinated and obsessed by him. But the enemy's waging war against that. There's a counterfeit Jesus, the Jesus of the American culture, which is not the true Jesus at all. That's the Jesus that's preached most in our nation right now. In 2 Corinthians 11, verse 4, Paul talked about in his day, there were preachers that preached another Jesus. These were men in the church preaching another Jesus that wasn't the real Jesus. They said a number of nice things and accurate things about him, but they were not presenting the real Jesus, the Jesus of the Bible. And in our nation, there's this outcry against the real Jesus within the church. More and more leaders are abdicating the truth and drawing back and actually denying the claims of Jesus. They're denying. It's an overt attack, but there's even something equally troubling. It's a passive attack. It's people just ignoring Jesus in the church and just trying to figure out how to make life happier and easier, and they'll sprinkle Jesus in the midst of it, if they have to, to make it work and to make their church grow. It's almost as troubling as the overt attack. Denying, it's the just ignoring. It's far more widespread. The counterfeit Jesus of the American culture. He has no power to transform the heart. That's why there's so many believers, three and four decades into the faith, still in bondage to so many things, because their heart has not, has not ever experienced power. Because the Jesus that they know is limited to forgiving them and providing a few things to help their circumstances. They know nothing of an awestruck life or heart with this glorious man. They know nothing of this Jesus. They've never heard of it. They haven't discovered it themselves in their own Bible. The state of the church in America, so much of it is a therapeutic, self-help, bless-me club. It is. It's a group. It's not a church. There's individuals that are born again in the group, but it's not Jesus focused. It's a therapeutic, self-help group that's looking to make life easier and happier. And I'll just mention Jesus a little bit along the way. The Holy Spirit saying, that's not what I'm after. That's not what I'm after. Man was made in God's image, but now man is presenting a God after man's own image. So Jesus made in the image of the American culture. It's not the true one. And there's no power in the heart with this kind of Jesus. It doesn't move us. It doesn't change us. It's so difficult to overcome sin when our spirit is dull and we're spiritually bored with Jesus. It's very difficult to say no to darkness when we're dull and we're bored in our walk with God. We need the real Jesus. Will the real Jesus please stand up? And it's so the Holy Spirit is saying, if my people would proclaim Him, I will bear witness to Him. And I'm not talking about me. I'm talking about millions of us. All the different streams of the body of Christ proclaiming the real Jesus and the Spirit will bear witness to Him when He's proclaimed. Whether in song, declaration, testimony, the arts, and in technology, all different ways that He's proclaimed. Many people want a domesticated Jesus. One they can manage. One that makes no demands on their time and money, on their words, their sexuality. They want a Jesus that makes no demands on those parts of their life. I'll go to a few meetings a week. Make one or two of them a prayer meeting if I need to. Go to a home Bible study. Go to an outreach. But the rest of the week is mine. My words are mine. My attitudes are mine. My sexuality is mine. Don't intrude on those areas. I'll go do those other things. Beloved, we cannot domesticate the real Jesus. He refuses to be tamed by His people. He is the Lion of the tribe of Judah. He roars. And it's kind of the image I get the body of Christ is such a lame and tame version. It's that they're coming to this roaring line and saying, come here kitty, kitty, kitty, kitty. Come on in and get in your place. They don't know who He is. Yes, He forgave us. Yes, He heals. And yes, He blesses. Yes, He provides. Yes, He directs. But He's so much more than that. Paragraph H. Here's the goals that I have in this class. It's to convince people that Jesus or the knowledge of God is the most powerful and pleasurable reality that anyone can experience. Number two, to convince people that the knowledge of God, to gain depth in it, is the most costly thing you will ever be involved in. It will cost you everything. Not to be forgiven, that's free. But to go somewhere in God will cost you everything. Go little ways, not so costly. I mean to have the deep things of His heart. But it will be the most valuable and lasting treasure you'll ever experience. Number three, to convince people that the most neglected issue in the kingdom of God is God. The most neglected issue is God, in the kingdom of God. We talk about everything besides God, unless we're talking about getting forgiveness. The reason we need to know it's the most neglected theme, God is, the knowledge of God, because if you think it's well accepted and well understood, when you begin to pursue it in a new way, you will find hostility from within the church. They will be utterly perplexed by what you're doing. They don't mind forgiveness. They don't mind blessing. They don't want people, many believers, they don't want to connect with people who are obsessed with Jesus. They go, that's too intense. Let's dial down. Let's get into the grace of God. Beloved, I submit to you, the grace of God will empower you to be obsessed, not talk you out of it. Number four thing I want to convince people of, this is the most attacked truth, the truth of Jesus. Again, overtly attacked within the church. I don't mean the secular society. Within the church, the pulpits, the leaders, attacking, denying the claims of Jesus. But equally dangerous, just the passive neglect, just becoming familiar with business as usual without encountering Jesus. Building large ministries without even figuring into the relationship, encountering Him in this way. And it being normative and okay with everyone. It's not okay with the Holy Spirit. He has so much more. Let's go to top of page 2, Matthew chapter 16, verse 13 to 19. Now this is one of the most significant passages in the Bible on the church. How it functions, its inevitable victory, what its foundation is. This is the first teaching in the Bible on the church, and it's from the lips of Jesus. And it's focused on Jesus asking the leaders of the early church the most important question, and it is the most important question today in the church. Not just to the leaders, but if the leaders get it right, the people will follow in suit. There's no question that's more important. And when I say leaders of the church, I mean leaders in the kingdom. It's whatever your assignment is. It doesn't mean you have a pulpit. Your assignment may be in the marketplace, in the government, in the media, in education, at the university. Wherever your assignment is, that is your kingdom ministry. I'm talking about leadership in those ways. I'm not talking just about preachers. I'm talking about everybody in this room. Well let's look at it. Verse 13, Matthew 16, verse 13. I picture them around the campfire one night, after a busy day, and Jesus asked the disciples. He goes, I got a very important question. Jesus knows he's going to talk about the church, and he knows he's laying the foundation for a victorious church that moves in power. And what he's saying is dynamically connected to the church walking in victory, moving in power. He said, here's my question. Verse 13, who do they say that I am? Verse 14, again I picture the twelve around the fire. One of them speaks up, says, they think you're John the Baptist. Because John the Baptist had just been killed by Herod. And Jesus, I'm making up the conversation. He says, well why do they think I'm John the Baptist? Well, they see you as a holiness preacher that's dedicated, deeply dedicated to God. And you speak the truth in such a fearless way. You're fearless, like John was. And Jesus could say, well, you know I am a holiness preacher. I am very dedicated to God. It's true. And I am fearless in what I say. One of the other guys interrupts, says, no, the people I talk to, they don't think you're a holiness preacher. They think you're Elijah, a supernatural prophet that confronts the powers of darkness aggressively, like Elijah took on the demonic priesthood in Israel in one event. In first Kings 18 and Mount Carmel, all the priests of Baal met him in one big showdown. He called fire down from heaven, confronted them, killed them all. I mean it was amazing. They said, when they look at you, they see the supernatural prophet with power over nature. You calm the storms. You raise the dead. You're like, you're demons. You cast demons out everywhere you go. You're very much like Elijah, not like John the Baptist. Jesus said, yeah, I do confront demons. I do move in power. You're right. But I'm more than that. One guy interrupts and says, well, the people I talk to, they think you're Jeremiah. Jeremiah was known as the weeping prophet, the prophet of compassion. They saw how you dealt so tenderly with the woman caught in adultery in John 8. Here's a group of hostile religious men ready to condemn this woman and break her. Jesus intervenes, turns the whole thing around, rescues her, and then connects her to God and gives her confidence in the grace of God with such tenderness. There's so many dimensions of what he did in that scene in John 8 that had so much tenderness. Jesus says, yeah, I am a tender shepherd. I am a holiness preacher like John. I'm a supernatural prophet like Elijah. I'm a tender person who cares about the hurting people to recover them in God. Verse 15, here's the key verse. You want to circle verse 15. Jesus looks at them right in the eyes. He goes, here's the real issue that I'm building up to. Here's the whole church is built on this one question to the leadership. Who do you think I am? Not only what do I do, who am I? The number one question of the hour at any generation of the church, it is so the important question right now for the body of Christ, for the leadership in the church, at whatever again assignment you have in the kingdom, whether in a pulpit or in a boardroom or in a factory, whatever assignment you have, this is the premier issue. Who do you think he is? Peter speaks up, verse 16, you're the Christ. Now the word Christ is the Greek, the Christ, the Hebrew, you're the Messiah or the anointed one. You're the anointed one. Now the, when you edit first reading, you might say Peter was only saying you're the one that forgives the people for their sins. Peter's not saying you're the forgiver of sins. That's not what he's saying. He goes, you are the culmination of all the Old Testament prophecies about somebody that's fully human, that's fully God, who's bridegroom, king, and judge. It's all come together in one man. You are that man. I mean, this was the hugest statement that he made. Again, we would read it just from a superficial point of view and say, Peter said, you're the one that forgives us for our sins. And that's not at all what Peter was saying. He goes, I'm thinking of Daniel 7, the son of man. I'm thinking of Isaiah 2, Isaiah 9, Isaiah 11. I mean, so many dynamic passage in Micah chapter 4, Micah chapter 5. There's one who's described. Peter said, you are the one. And to be the one, you have to be fully God, fully man is the implication because the Christ has a full range of definitions relating to his deity and a full range of descriptions related to his humanity. And he says, you are that man, the only one. Jesus said, you're right, Peter. Verse 17, flesh and blood did not reveal this to you. Meaning, you didn't hear this at a Bible study where somebody pointed out a man did not teach this to you. You didn't have a discussion over there and you figured it out. This was a supernatural revelation. And beloved, let me say this. It is a supernatural revelation to grow in knowledge of the Christ. The fullness of who he is as God and the fullness of who he is as man and the most unthinkable, the combination of the two of them in fullness. Takes a Holy Spirit escort. Verse 18, Jesus says this, it's on this rock on the truth of who I am is fully God, fully man on the truth of the magnificence and the majesty of who I am, the uniqueness of who I am on that truth. I will build my church. Beloved, the church is only built in a sound way, not on the doctrine of forgiveness of sins. That's critical. But there's so much more to the foundation of the church, not on healing, economic provision, prophetic direction. I love those things, not remotely minimizing them. I love those things. The church is built on more than that. It's built on an ongoing encounter with this man who has the unique ability to fascinate us forever and forever to be the one we are obsessed with by the grace of God. Jesus goes on and says, the way you answer the question as to who I am, that's the truth of who I am. Better is the rock of truth of which the church is built. And the reason the church in America is so weak today, the numbers are larger than ever, but the spiritual vibrancy is so weak because the church is not being built upon the truth of Jesus. It's being built upon the truth, much of it, not all of it. There's glorious exceptions. There may be a few thousand groups, maybe a few more. Hopefully there's tens of thousands, I hope. But there's hundreds of thousands that are not on in this direction. They got forgiveness right. They really get that right. But the great heir is a part of the truth, is passed off as the whole truth. It's only the introduction to who he is. He went on to say the gates of hell or the authority, gates and authority is the same concept. The authority of hell, Hades and hell is the same. The power of Satan, is what he's talking about, will not defeat you. That's what he's saying. In other words, you're going to be victorious. And that victory is in fullness in the age to come. But beloved, there is substantial advances and gains of victory that is available right now that the church is not walking in. Some people say, don't put the victory off to the age to come. There is so much advance of victory that God wants to give the church that we're not walking in. We don't even have to worry about the victory of the age to come. There's too much more to lay hold of even now in this age. Then verse 19, he tells them the way to victory. He goes, I'll give you the keys of the kingdom. He's talking about intercession. He goes, you will bind or stop the demonic. You will stop the negative. You'll bind it. You'll stop it. But not only will you bind the negative, you will loose or release the blessing of God. You'll do it by your words. I'll give you keys and you will talk to me and bind darkness and release blessing. And the church will go into victory, but the whole thing is built upon the rock of knowing the truth about me. If you get that wrong, you won't have victory and you won't bind and loose with authority or with right motive or with a right spirit. Now many people lock into verse 19 and they want to focus on binding and loosing without a connection or a growth of truth about who he is in verse 15, 16 and 17. Others preach verse 18, the victory, but they have a victory disconnected from the truth of the man. I mean, again, they get a little bit of the truth, but I'm talking about, there's a whole array of truth the spirit wants us to lay hold of. And as a people, we need so much more. As a man, I need so much more of this, but this is where we're focused. This is where we're locked in. Let's go to the middle of page two, paragraph F. When I was about 18 years old, that was almost 40 years ago, not quite, but getting close. My youth pastor, name was Richard, he told me, he said, because I wanted to be on fire for God. And so he, I would have these private meetings with him and he's discipling me. And he said, here's what you need to do. You need to grow in the knowledge of God. It's okay. What's that? I didn't, that was a, that, that, that was a strange phrase to me, the knowledge of God. And he told me to read a book, about a hundred page book by us, a man I never heard of, A.W. Tozer. I go, who's A.W. Tozer? He goes, don't worry about who he is, read the book. It changed your life. And I have, I've been talking about this book for 40 years almost. I'm a satisfied customer. I've promoted it in many conferences. You get it in our bookstore, get it online, many places, I'm sure. The knowledge of the Holy. It's a little hundred page book. And I read this book and honestly at age 18, I didn't get much out of it. But what got my attention is my youth pastor told me I needed to get a lot out of it. So I stayed with it. I said, I don't really know what this book is about, but I know the guy I trust tells me I don't have a future unless I know this stuff. And I went, oh boy. So I stayed with it. And in the introduction, my favorite part of the book, there's about 20 chapters, they're all each about two or three pages only. My favorite part of the book I read over and over was the introduction. And in this introduction, here's what he says, just a few ideas. These are not direct quotes, but they're the, I'm accurately telling some of the things he taught. Tozer said this, what we think about God is the most important thing about us. That was an interesting idea. I go, when we think about God. And I thought, I think that he made the sky and he forgave me of my sin. And every now and then he gives me money. I don't think that much about God. I mean, I love him. I mean, I worship him in the worship, in the worship meetings. Huh? Well, you think about God's most important. I don't think that much. I mean, I don't think I do. He went on to say the most revealing thing about the church is her ideas about God. Or I want to say her ideas about Jesus. The most significant message is what the church says about him or what the church leaves unsaid about him. The neglect. That there are a hundred lesser evils caused in the church and in our lives because of this one great lack of the knowledge of God. That we can't refuse temptation when our spirit is dull and we're spiritually bored. We can't consistently refuse temptation. And so we're thinking we got to try harder. But what the truth is, we need to see more clearly. We need to see more, not just try harder. Because when our spirit is invigorated, when our spirit is touched by who this man is, not just the assurance we're given, but who he is. Not just that we're going to be blessed and life's going to be a little easier, but who he is. There's something about a vibrant spirit that gives us a very different approach to temptation. I tell you, a man or a woman with a vibrant spirit, they can look at immorality. They can look at covetousness. They can look at bitterness. They can look at complaining. They can look at boredom right in the eye and say no to it. Because they have a little bit of that vibrancy in their spirit. And that's all about the knowledge of God. Like I said, Lord if I can see what Paul saw, I would live like Paul lived. It's an issue of seeing, because there's a dynamic connection between seeing and responding. Paragraph G, the most important question in your life. The most important question in your ministry. Who do you say I am? The question isn't, do you like him? Yes, you like him. That's why you're here. I like Jesus. Jesus says, I know that. That's not necessarily going to transform you in the way you want to be transformed. It's a beginning. It's good. You need to know who it is you're encountering, even a little bit. What do you imagine him to be like? When it's just you and him, and your own private thoughts, what do you see? What do you think about in detail? And again, most people would say they don't think that much, and we don't think that deep. Our thoughts are too few, and our thoughts are too low. And I'm not saying that as a rebuke. I'm saying that let's make a determination in the grace of God that our thoughts would be much, and our thoughts would be deep. The next 10 years, let's correct it in our life. It won't be corrected in a weekend, or a month, or a semester at the Bible school, because a low view of Jesus keeps us in bondage, keeps our spirit dull. But listen to this, a low view of Jesus keeps us trapped in spiritual boredom. It's the most dangerous thing, besides condemnation, is spiritual boredom. Top of page three, Paul gives a, in Ephesians 4, verse 11 to 13, he gives a very interesting prophecy. Here's a prophecy. He's talking about the end time church. He's describing how the church functions throughout 2,000 years of church history, but he's actually going to the end, as to where the church, the levels the church is going to attain to. And this, we're talking about on earth. This isn't describing the church in heaven. This is describing the church on the earth. He gave some apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, teachers. He anoints men and women in the church for this reason, verse 12, to equip, to help the people, to help believers. To help believers do what? Verse 13, till they come to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God. That's the phrase I want to look at. Wait a second. Why do believers need to come to the knowledge of Jesus? I thought believers had the knowledge of Jesus, or they couldn't be a believer. Jesus, Paul's not talking about apostles and prophets helping the church to be assured they're forgiven. He's not talking about forgiveness. He says God's going to anoint the church to convince the people about the splendor of the man Jesus, that they're filled with the knowledge of him. This is talking about intimacy. This isn't talking about the initial entrance into the kingdom. The greatest need in the church is that we would connect with the knowledge of the Son of God. Paragraph B, God's raising up ministries. Again, whether the marketplace, the government, education, the pulpit, the classroom, the boardroom, the warehouse, wherever it is, the sports arena. Determine, verse Ephesians 3, 8, you're going to preach, not yourself, you're going to preach, look at it, the unsearchable riches of a man. This is what the Holy Spirit is wanting to anoint. He's waiting for people to say it, sing it, show it forth in drama, many ways through technology. Make known the man and I will anoint it, but there's so few making known this man. More than forgiveness, talk about the unsearchable wealth and the glory of the man. So we determine today, I'm going to preach this. But it's not enough to speak it because it has to come out of our spirit. We have to encounter it. If we speak it only, we're just an echo. A sermon born in the mind only will only reach the mind. A sermon born in the heart, we do it in our private life, it will move the hearts of others. I determined as a movement, we want to preach the unsearchable riches of this man. We want Jesus to be the magnificent obsession of this community. Yes, we're going to talk about forgiveness. That's part of the riches. We're going to talk about economic blessing. We're going to talk about prophetic direction. We're going to talk about physical healing. We're going to talk about many facets of his riches, but more than all we want to talk about the wealth of who he is. Not only what he does, but of course what he does is an expression of who he is. But there's more about him that we want to touch. Paragraph C. I said it already, but i'll say it again. We must focus on the person in our ministry. But we have to get familiar with the person in our private life. Because again, if we don't touch it in our private life, if it's something we just learn to say, it's rhetoric. It doesn't move anybody. The most neglected subject of the kingdom of God is God. We talk relationship skills, leadership skills, economic principles, ministry skills. We tell people how to be happier, how to make life easier, but we rarely talk about God, except we're offering forgiveness. Habakkuk 2.11. I mean, Habakkuk 2.14 says that the earth, the earth, I don't have the verse there, the earth will be filled with the knowledge of God. It's the knowledge of who Jesus is will fill the earth. That's the ultimate place this is going, that he will fill the earth. I want to get on, I want to get in line with the Holy Spirit. I want to be on his team. I want to focus on what he's focusing on in my private life and in my ministry. Very briefly, we're just going to look at this because it's so self-evident. The five conditions, Roman numeral four. I mean, they're very easy to understand, so I don't have to break them down. The five conditions for cultivating the knowledge of God. Now, I have a personal story that I've told over the years, and I'm going to tell it again. So my, I'm 18 years old, 19 years old. My youth pastor tells me I have to get this Tozer book and learn it to get the knowledge of God. I said, okay. So I go to University of Missouri, you know, big university, 30,000 students, you know, a whole lot going on there. And I start a Bible study, and we've got one or two hundred students coming to it. There's several of us involved in it. Now, here's the problem. I got a one or two hundred students coming, but I don't have any sermons. I mean, I have none. So I got a Bible study every Tuesday night, but I don't have a message. It's kind of a dilemma. So I said, well, my youth leader told me Tozer is what I need, so maybe that's what they need. So I took this little hundred page book and started memorizing it. I don't mean word for word, but idea for idea. I wrote it all down, and I would go with like 25 pages of notes to preach from. And I would just basically read the Tozer book from my notes nearly. I just memorized it. And the, afterwards, it went horrible. I didn't feel it. None of them felt it. Then the guy asked me afterwards, what, what do you mean by that point? I go, I don't know. Page 53, you know, what do you think it means? You know, your guess is as good as mine. I was just echoing it. But it was all a divine setup. Because I began to get troubled because I was teaching, and I'd never taught a Bible study like this, you know, with a hundred people in it every week. And I was struck by the fact I knew nothing about God except for he forgave me and he liked me. Those are good beginnings, but those are real good. But I didn't know anything. And I didn't know that I did not know anything. I just assumed I knew something until I had to say it. And I began to get really troubled. I go, God, I don't know you at all. I don't have anything to say that I don't memorize from a book. I don't even know who you are. I mean, I know I'm born again. I know you love me. I mean, come on, let's make this work. So I begin to ask everybody, how do you know the knowledge of God? Like Tocher says, everybody says, what are you talking about? Most people, I mean, people didn't have an answer. Most of them were completely perplexed by the question. I was in serious desperation for about six months. I mean, this bothered me so bad. I had this sick, depressed, ugly feeling inside of emptiness. I hate the memory of it. And I would read biographies all the time. Always reading biographies of godly men and women. And I would tell biography stories. I couldn't talk about God, but I could talk about people who knew God. Then I determined one day, I said, you know what? I remember I slammed my hand on the table. I was by myself. I went, I said, I want to know God like these people in the biographies. I'm not content to know a man who knows God or to know about a man in a biography who knows God. I want to know God. I want to know God. It was a terrifying, glorious, terrifying decision because, you know, what if it doesn't work? Or what if it does work and he demands everything out of me like the biography people. I mean, I love telling their story from the safe place of my comfort zone. I go, you know, these guys like did really sacrificial, ah! So I was excited by maybe it'd work. What if it didn't? But what if it did, but it cost me everything? I was excited with an asterisk. Terrified. Troubled. Nervous. But I was serious. It's about 18, 19 years old. Determined I was going to pursue this. I was going to know God. I was going to ask everyone I could find, how do you get the knowledge of God? And nobody could give me an answer. Because again, most people were perplexed by the question. Tozer got me into it. Without him, I wouldn't even have thought of it. Well, it wasn't really Tozer. It was the Bible study where I taught on Tozer and it went so terrible. That's what got me into it. That's when I understood I had nothing to say. Because until I started saying it, I imagined I knew it. Until I had to say it, I had nothing to say. I went, ah! I know nothing. So we're, paragraph B. Proverbs 2, verse 1 to 5. We're at a college retreat, a skiing retreat. We took the whole Bible study. About a hundred, one or two hundred. We all went to Colorado, you know, over the back. They didn't have one thing conferences in those days or I would have went. It was over Christmas break. So we're there. And we had Bible studies every night and worship. But in the morning, I'd get up and have my prayer time and my Bible reading. And somebody told me, Bill Gothard, actually. I heard him say it. If you read, there's 31 Proverbs. If you read one every single day, you'll go through the book of Proverbs every month. I did that for a number of years. I thought it was profound. I go, I can do that. Because one of the big reasons I didn't read the Bible, besides it was boring, like crazy, so boring. I didn't know where to start. Now, isn't that a crazy reason not to read the Bible? I didn't know where to start. So I said, well, I know where to start. Whatever date it is, I'll just read that Proverb. Sounds cool. I recommend that, by the way. So this young believer, he asked me, again, we're all 18, 19 years old. He says, hey, how do you, you know, I was sitting there before the, you know, we went skiing that day, there by the fireplace, reading. He goes, how do you do this? I said, well, I'm about to read Proverbs 2. He goes, why? I go, you know, it's January 2nd, Proverbs 2. He goes, wow, that's heavy. I go, yeah, that's pretty cool. Oh, he was impressed. He really was. He went, wow, that's cool. I go, oh, yeah, I've been doing this for a while, you know. So I said, let's, let's do it. So I'm in the total teacher mode, and I'm about to get the ambush of my life that I don't know is coming. I go, okay, Proverbs 2, it's January 2nd. Verse 1, if you receive my words and treasure my commands. I said, now, I'm here, I am in the waxing eloquent teacher mode. I go, now, if you see an if, that's a condition. And eventually you're going to have a then. God goes, man, you know the Bible. I go, well, I've been around four years. I've been doing this for a while. Verse 3, if you cry for discernment, if you seek for the silver, I go, oh, I stop again. I go, there's three ifs in a row. This is going to be big. I haven't even read verse 5. I go, it's going to be big. Three ifs means good news. And this guy was so impressed, and I was so impressed with how he was so impressed. I said, verse 5, then, I go, here it is. I actually said, then, and looked up, here it is. And I'm about to get, I mean, a a life-changing moment is about to touch me. I've been asking everyone, how do you know the knowledge of God? Nobody could give me an answer. I don't know, read more Tozer books. That's the best I knew. If you want, he says, then you will understand the fear of the Lord. And then, here it is, you will find the knowledge of God. And it just hit me, the first time I ever felt any emotion about the subject of knowledge of God. And I begin to just, tears begin to well up in my eye. And this, you know, new believer, he looks at me, goes, something wrong? He goes, what happened? I go, you know, I need to excuse myself for a minute. And I went over to the side, I go, God, you are really going to tell me how to do this. I said, I can know the knowledge. Oh my, you guys just all go. I got to stay here for a while. Paragraph C. We'll look at each condition, just 30 seconds, because you can read the text. It's all very obvious. Condition one, receive my saying. Don't refuse them. Don't ignore them. Receive them. That means obedience. Obedience is essential. Paragraph D. If you treasure my commands. In the Old Testament, the word commands, precepts, statues, they often, it just is another way of saying if the word of God. If you'll treasure the word, in other words, you'll meditate on it. Don't read it like a grocery list, but actually talk to God while you're reading the word. Treasure it. These are big subjects, but we've talked about them many times. And today, I just want to give you the overview. Meditation on the word, indispensable. A spirit of obedience, indispensable. Some people, they go, they go short on obedience, and they just kind of amp up or ramp up their prayer and fasting. Lord, I'll pray more and fast more if you can let me sin, and just kind of, we'll call it even. It doesn't work that way. Prayer is no substitute for obedience. You can't disobey the spirit and then even the score by going to more prayer meetings and throwing in fasting, unless you're praying and fasting to get free from the thing you're doing. That's good. But with the intent to break your agreement with it. Top of page four. Paragraph F. The third condition. If you have a teachable spirit, the prophet says, if you climb your ear, you approach it like a child, each passage. That you commit yourself to learn whatever the passage says, not your predisposed ideas, not your biases that you grew up with, and not limiting it to the one little facet of the diamond that you understand. Jesus, show me more about this verse that I don't know about. Teach me like a child. So we go with a child's heart, a learner's heart. You may know the truth about a verse, but I assure you, the diamond of that truth in that verse, there are many facets. You'll be learning that verse a million years from now in the age to come. You'll never exhaust that verse, whatever verse it is. That's how the whole Bible is. Paragraph G. The fourth condition. Cry out for discernment. This isn't just take a minute before your prayer time and say, Lord, give me the spirit of wisdom and revelation. Yes, we actually have to ask for that. But I'm talking about when you're actually reading, you know, chapter 8, verse 3, you're looking at a verse and you actually ask for insight on that verse, not just a general prayer. Give me more wisdom, Lord. Okay, I got that one off the list. Move on. As you're reading the word, you're talking and asking for understanding all the way through it. As well as general requests, show me your heart. But we actually have to ask. Many people don't actually ask that question. They read the word, they underline it, they tell their friend, and they're done with it. They don't meditate on it. They don't come like a child. They don't eagerly ask the Holy Spirit for guidance throughout the reading of the scripture. These are things that the scripture says, I found these invaluable, as simple as they are. Paragraph H. The fifth and final condition. Seek for it like silver. Search like hidden treasure. Search for it. Be diligent. Pay any price. It's going to take long hours. I don't mean a day. I'm talking about commit the next decade and then the decade after that. Not a summer. Not a month. I'm talking about make decade-long commitments. Takes long hours. I remember talking to a pastor once. And he said the most amazing thing to me. And he thought what I said was amazing. He came to me, he said, now when I hear you talk, he says, I sometimes have this idea, you think there's a correlation between how much time you spend with God and how much God gives you? I said, I don't understand the question. He goes, it sounds like you're saying if you pray and read more, you get more. I said, yeah. I go, I'm confused. He goes, well, that's legalism. He goes, that's not the grace of God. He goes, ugh. I said, what do you think? He goes, I just think you just kind of go on with life and it just drops in your spirit and it's grace. I go, you are so confused. I go, there is a deep correlation between how much time you spend and how far you go. A deep, a very dynamic correlation. He goes, oh, I just thought you kind of bebopped around life and Revelation dropped in your spirit on the way. I go, that happens a little bit. But there is a direct correlation by the measure of your encounter with the time you spend in it over years. Absolutely. I told our students, all right, I hope you students, you know, the God, as we said, there's a thousand new students in entrance the last week or two that have landed here. Now, I want to encourage them to take time because they could come to school for four years here and some of you are undoubtedly here and beloved, you've got to draw back from some of the socializing. I think socializing is important. It is important to have some kingdom relationships. There's so much playing around and goofing off in the kingdom, young and old alike, so much waste of time and so little pursuit of God, but under the banner of pursuing God and it's just all rhetoric. It's not real. I told him, I said, you got four years. Go deep in God before you're committed to being popular. Go deep, be popular second. Be the most hungry, not the most liked. And if they like you, that's cool. Don't make that your big thing. And take those smartphones and put them under the category, the fasted lifestyle. I'm serious. The amount of social media and texting that people are changing subjects every 60 seconds, every two minutes, a different dialogue with another person and another person and studying their bible, listening to a class, dialoguing, every 60 seconds changing subjects. I'm not joking when I say this. They have a self-induced ADD syndrome that they created themselves. I mean for real. They actually trained themselves to be ADD. They were not born with it. They actually trained themselves just like you can get addicted to alcohol if you want. They're actually addicted to changing the subject every 30 to 60, 90 seconds, and they can't think about anything with any kind of clarity and they're wrecking their soul and losing their inheritance. They're thinking, well, I just want to, you know, want to be up to date, want to be, forget all of that stuff. I mean it has its place but way down the list. Go deep in God. Have a vision for your life. Talk to one young guy and tell him about this. She goes, well, you're an old guy. I says, that I am. I said, I'm not, I don't do that social networking texting just because I'm an old guy. It's because I have a vision for my life. I turned down many social things, many ministry opportunity, many issues where I could make money in, many, many things for 30 years, and I don't regret it at all. I want to go deep in God. I'm not trying to become more popular, have a bigger ministry and become richer. I'm trying to go deep. That's my point. I said, you got to make real decisions about your time or you're going to go nowhere. Seek for this hidden treasure. What if, here we have this building's empty. I come up to you and say, you have a year. I buried a million dollars worth of gold somewhere in this building and maybe a foot under the concrete somewhere. The building's empty. Here's your tools, jackhammers, anything you want. You can have it if you find it. You have a year. I guarantee many of you would be here night and day tearing up, pulling off things on the wall. You'd be searching for this hidden treasure. Is not Jesus a more worthy treasure? I'm serious. Isn't he worth turning away some socializing, turning away a little popularity, turning away a little ministry opportunity, a little money-making opportunity? Now, I'm not talking to those people that you're living on economic fumes. You're starving. Go ahead and take the opportunity. Pay your bills. I'm not talking to that group. I just had to remember. Some of you are going, I'm not making note. Pay your bills. I'm talking about, I have a chance to make so much more money in my ministry for 20, 30, for 30 years. And I say, no, I don't want to go. I want to go deep. I don't want to go out. I go out some. But I want, I got a vision. I'm going somewhere in God, not just growing something for man. I don't do it as good as I want to, but what I'm saying is, the social network, texting, media, talking, chatting, goofing off, chilling, hanging. Get that out. Get a vision and go deep and search for treasure. And don't come up with some ridiculous grace of God doctrine to back up laziness and passivity and aimlessness in your life. And call it the grace of God. That is not the grace of God. That's called immaturity and selfishness. It's not the grace of God. Grace of God will empower you to be dedicated, go deep. And when we fail, which we do many times, to get forgiveness and to get a new beginning with confidence within 24 hours. I mean every day, the day the mercy is new. That's what grace gives you. The ability to start new every day with confidence and the ability to go deep and to be dedicated. It doesn't empower us to live lazy, sloppy, just aimless and all of those kinds of things like so many are talking about the grace of God. It is a lie. It is a lie that is stealing your soul. We got people at IHOP could be here five or ten years and their soul is in worse condition than when they came. Because they're going nowhere in God. They're just hanging and bebopping around IHOP. Even our worship team's going zero advance in God. Paragraph K. I gotta really end this. I'm way over time. Paragraph K. It's the glory of God to hide a matter. Proverbs 25.2. It's the glory of God to hide a matter. It's the glory of the king to search it. Beloved, there's a kingly spirit about searching this out. Search him out. He hides back. He goes forgiveness is free. The deep things of my heart will cost you everything to have. If I'm valuable to you, come after me. If I'm not, I'll see you in heaven and I'll love you every step there, but you won't encounter me. Search it out with the kingly spirit. And then paragraph L. The promise. You'll understand the fear of God. The fear of God won't be confusing. Fear of God to many believers is intrusive. It's weird. It's confusing. It's perplexing. You'll understand it. You'll have an awe of God in your spirit of brightness. It will make sense and appear valuable and you will have progressively more and more knowledge of God that will change your life. Amen. Let's stand. Lord, here we are. We want to search for you as treasure. I'm going to turn up every stone, tear down every board. I'm going to find that gold. I'm going to go for it. I'm going to search Leviticus, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes. I'm going to search it out. I'm going to face my own boredom, my own dullness, and I'm going to face it and keep pressing by the grace of God through it. That's what we're talking about. I want to invite anybody to come forward. Here's what you're saying. You're saying, I love Jesus and I've prayed for the power of God and I'm going after God, but I've never actually in a focused way made the knowledge of God the goal of my life. Or one of the premier goals, if not the premier goal. I've never really done that. I want to go after the knowledge of God. Not just healing, money, anointing. I mean him. Touch his heart. I'm going to make this my life passion. And above it, I love the healing. I love the prophetic. I love all that stuff, but I want him. And if that's new to you, new decision. I don't mean you're renewing it from a year ago. It's a new decision. I want you to come up here. Stand before the Lord. Just come on up and you say, I'm going to go for this. Proverbs 2 tells you how. It's real simple. It just costs you. That's all. It just, it takes time. It's not going to change in 30 days. Commit a decade. Don't even come up for air for a decade to reevaluate it. Go full decade. Start turning things off, shutting things down, pulling back and giving yourself to this for a full decade. And it's never too late to start. Never too late to start. Because the Holy Spirit wants to escort you into truth if you'll go, but he won't make you go if you don't want to go. Father, here we are. Jesus, our magnificent obsession. We want you. We want you. We want to search for you like treasure. We're yours, Lord. Escort me to this treasure hunt. Escort me to the beauty of the man, Jesus, Holy Spirit. I want to know your heart, Jesus. I don't want a dull spirit. I don't want to be bored anymore. I want to make known the riches of Jesus to others. Lord, release your power now. Touch the heart. Seal the seed of the heart right now. Hear what sin you're stuck in. You can get out of it. This thing can get settled. You can go deep. The next 10 years, lock in for a decade. I want my heart to burn. Even just for two people. Take three minutes. Pray for two people. 90 seconds a piece. Ask for the spirit of revelation. Ask for the glory of God to touch their heart. Jesus Jesus Oh Jesus