Mike Bickle emphasizes the core values of leadership as demonstrated in David's life, particularly through Psalms 101. He highlights David's commitment to building a dwelling place for God, which required personal integrity and accountability among leaders. Bickle points out that David's pursuit of holiness and his understanding of God's desire to rest among His people are crucial for experiencing divine visitation. The sermon encourages listeners to reflect on their own leadership roles and the importance of aligning with God's standards to foster a powerful outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Ultimately, Bickle calls for a radical commitment to obedience and a lifestyle that attracts God's presence.

Father, we come to you in the name of Jesus and we ask you to bless the hearing of your word. Lord, I ask you to break in and empower in the outreach in Westport tonight. I ask you to visit Misty's team and all those that were, how you touched them last week and ask for healings in the prayer room, just sovereignly begin to touch people. We ask you to bless the hearing of your word even now in Jesus' name, amen. Well, we're continuing on the life of David and when the semester is over, we're going to continue right on through. I'm going to continue to have notes and to present them like we are in the overhead and we're going to stick with the life of David for some time. We haven't really got that far into the verse by verse of his life, but I plan to. And the fact that we have these meetings every Friday night, I'm not in that big of a hurry because there's so many Friday nights to go. So here on session nine, we're going to talk about the core values in David's life and in his leadership. And I want to point out a Psalm that is probably the most important Psalm of David to my life personally. And yeah, I don't know if you want to pick the most important because there's two or three of them I put in that category, but Psalm 101 is kind of not really emphasized much. And I want to tell you that it's been, has the most practical and personal impact on my life personally. And so I'm excited to share Psalm 101. But if it's a new Psalm to you that you haven't really paid much attention to, I want to alert you to it. It is absolutely power packed. And at first reading, you may not get much out of it. It takes a few readings, but it shows forth the leadership values of King David in a very direct way. And it shows a side of David, shows his wisdom and his perception. He has tremendous perception in the Holy Spirit about how to build as a leader. And this is a Psalm about how leaders build within their sphere of ministry. It doesn't have to be a quote church ministry. If you're leading in any sphere of ministry, this is telling you how David built as a leader, as a wise leader. And it shows a side of David that most of us are not familiar with. It's a side where he was very pressed. He pressed the issues of faithfulness in his people. He held them accountable. He demanded an abandonment out of especially his governmental leaders. And the reason he did that, not just because he wanted, you know, everybody kind of toeing the line because he connected this to the fact of God's visitation in his generation. And David understood that if the people do not respond in a certain way corporately, the visitation of power will not happen. And David understood the corporate dimension on the human side of what God required to give a more full visitation. Now there's a little bit of the move of the spirit happening all the time, but David was passionate. He had a vision for a mighty outpouring, but he knew there was a human side to the mighty outpouring. And in Psalm 101, he was abandoning his own life to this pursuit of the outpouring. And he was building a leadership team that was suited for this outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Again, at first reading, you may not see that, but it's strongly there. And we'll get to that. We see this zealous man for the dwelling place of God, this man that will take no prisoners. He's not going to let the standard be lowered if it ends up repelling the presence of the Holy Spirit. It's kind of the side of David, you know, we're used to the happy, free-spirited David, but this is the in-your-face David that's like, whoa. But that David is really in the Bible. And typically when we talk about the life of David, we typically talk about the free spirit, not the zealous standard bearer that will not allow the standard to be lowered because he knows it will jeopardize the chance of a historic visitation in his generation. And so that's the other side of David that's not often emphasized. Okay, letter A, paragraph A, well, this is a little review from the last couple weeks. David is a picture of what God will release by the Spirit on the end-time church. I'm talking tonight about David the leader, but he's also the picture of the whole church that's radically committed. And I want to keep that focus, but I want to bring it down more specific. Many of you will have spheres of leadership. Some of them will be in the marketplace, some will be in ministry, some will be in your neighborhood. You'll have spheres of leadership, and I want you to tap into David the individual leader, not just David the picture of the corporate church, but I don't want to lose sight of the fact that he's the picture of the radical, abandoned people of God who lose the power of God through worship and a life of obedience. And the passage we look at every time is Isaiah 55, verse 3 and 4, where David was given by God as a witness to the people. He was a picture to the people. He's a witness. He was God's witness of what God would do. God told all the generations from David, I have given a witness to you of what I long to do, study the weakness of David, but study his resolve to be obedient, even in the midst of his weakness and study my passion for him. And it becomes a witness from heaven as to what I want to do with people. So beloved, you're supposed to receive David's life as a witness from God's heart to what God wants for your life. Psalm 87, 86, David says this himself. He was aware of it. He says, God has shown me a sign for good. He's made me a picture for others of his goodness. David is a picture. He's a prophetic sign that we're supposed to be stirred up by. And sometimes we emphasize his weakness. Other times we emphasize his prophetic discernment and his insight. Other times we emphasize his abandonment. He was so committed to obedience, though he failed so many times. But he would stand back up. The thing about David, he would not camp out in his disobedience. When he sinned, he would raise up, he would repent, fiercely repent. He would push, delete. He wouldn't camp out in the sin, and he would run right into the heart of God with confidence that God would receive him. And then he's a sign or a picture of God breaking in with power with such delight over his life. Well, he's a sign of so many things. B. David here in Psalm 101 is the wise, the wise builder, the leader. I'm using the phrase wise builder from 1 Corinthians chapter 3, verse 10. Paul called himself a wise master builder. He built strategically. He built with understanding. David didn't just, in his generation, say, oh, I love God and let, you know, just whatever was whatever. He's very, very strategic in his understanding about what he was doing. Very intentional. Paul referred to himself as a wise master builder. It would be very accurate to call David a very intentional, perceptive builder. He built his ministry, which was the army and the nation, deliberately with the view of preparing a place for God to visit in power. He built the whole nation that way so that God would have a dwelling place, a place to move in power. When it says God having a dwelling place, it means a place for God to manifest signs and wonders in his glory and miracles and angels. That's what it means in our language. So we have 1 Samuel chapter 18, verse 14. This is David behaved wisely in all of his ways, especially in his leadership. He was very wise. He wasn't just discreet where he didn't say out of place things. He was wise and he was very intentional, again, about what he did, connecting it to the move of God. The next passage, chapter 18, verse 30, David behaved more wisely than all. David had a wisdom because there was a supernatural dimension to it. He had a perception that was beyond his years, that was beyond even his abilities. It was a Holy Spirit perception. He was wiser than any of the young men in the land. He had an awareness of what God wanted and how to get it, how to do it. He knew what God was after and he went after it. Beloved, there's a number of you sitting in this room. You're 20 years old. You're 25 years old. You, you're saying, I want to be wise, more wise than all. And your point isn't to be wiser, you know, compete to have more wisdom. You want to compete in humility. That's cool. Just out serve everybody. But the idea is you want to be, have unique understanding about how, what God wants and how to get him because God will move according to his revealed word. And so we want to line up so that God does what he wants to do. And we're, we're the vessels of it. There's so many sincere people who love God, but they're out of touch with what God's building in this generation, what God wants. And so I want to put this before you. He was wiser than all the young men of Israel. And that same spirit can rest upon young men and young women right here in this room. Okay. Roman numeral two. Now here's what David understood. And there's many passages about this, about where David would talk about it, but I'm just going to, I'm not going to try to get to all those. David knew that God desired Roman numeral two to manifest himself in his people. And the scripture calls this God's resting place, God's resting place. Now, what do you mean manifest himself? That means miracles. That means power. That means the realm of the spirit being manifested in the natural, but it has this peculiar description in the Bible. It's called God's resting place. And here here's why it means that it's the time when God is resting. Instead of striving with his people, instead of his people resisting him and then him resisting them, then they resist him. He resists them even though he loves them. Most of his relationship with believers on the earth, he is striving against them. I want to go as far to say that's probably true of most people in this room. The Lord spends more time striving against us. I put myself in that category. I don't want to be in that category, but I know there's areas the Lord's saying, Mike, I want to be at rest. I don't want to like have every time we talk, there's more issues that you're resisting me on with your speech and your eyes and your time and your money. I don't want to, I want to rest in you. I want you and me to be fully at peace because, well, the Lord wants for his own reasons, personally for each one of us. But then when God finds the people that he's at rest in, instead of striving, he's not every time he talks to us, he's not saying your eyes, your tongue, your money, your time, your ambitions. Come on, I want you to come into alignment with me. The Lord really wants to rest in people. He wants to be at peace. He wants people to come into this voluntary unity with him. Now that's going to happen in the kingdom age. After the second coming of Christ in the millennial kingdom and eternity, he's going to rest in his people. That's a fact. And that's the ultimate rest of God is in his people when we have resurrected bodies. But the Lord has offered his people that he would rest in them in part, even in this age with a display of power. So let's look at this idea for a minute. Isaiah 66, verse one, the Lord speaking, he goes, heavens, my throne, earth is my footstool. But where is the place that I rest? That's the critical question of human history. This was the question David was consumed with in his generation. He wanted, he wanted to cooperate with the spirit of grace and truth to have human beings so relate to him together that God would find a resting place in the midst of these human beings that David had understanding about what God wanted. David was consumed with this idea of God visiting in his generation. David answered this question in part, not, not in the full sense. It won't be answered fully until the Lord returns. But I'm telling you right now, God is looking, his eyes are going to and for all across this nation, you know, of course the whole world, but he's looking for a place in America to rest. And I believe with all of my heart, there is not one place in our nation where God can rest in. Certainly not here and certainly not there. I don't believe there's one resting place of the Lord where he's not mostly contending with the people. And that's what he's looking for. And he's looking at our ways. He's offering this to, uh, you know, a hundred thousand groups or more, but I, you know, my concern is it what everybody else is saying. I'm saying, Lord, I want to build wisely. I want to emphasize the right things. I want to live the right way in my life. I want to lead and gather leaders with the right values. We want to raise up a response in the grace of God that can become a resting place of God in this nation. That's what Psalm 101 is all about because you have to emphasize the right truths, holy abandonment to God and for some others, you have to lead it. You have to get leaders that do it and embody it. And the problem is some of the most gifted are not the most passionate about this lifestyle. Some of the most gifted leaders in the kingdom of God are the most resistant to this kind of reality. And so as a leader, I run into that all the time. Some of the people that are best on the platform in whatever mode are not necessarily the best in their private lives. I mean, they love God and many good things. The Lord's speaking and whispering in my ear and says, I want you to be like David because he wants us all to be like David. I want you to gather men and women that are intentional about these values. Like David did have wisdom. Don't just build with gifting, build with perception, big gather together what I'm looking for in this nation. And I will visit if they gathers together before me, I'll help you if you want, if you'll do it. But there is a human response. Psalm 132, the Psalmist cried out arise, oh God, to your resting place. God's not in his resting place right now. I mean, his resting place is in the senses in heaven, but his resting place in the full sense of the word is when he's in the midst of his people, in the midst of humans resting because he's at unity with humans. That's what God's rest means. His rest is not related to how he's, how he feels within the fellowship of the Trinity up in heaven. That's not what his rest is about. His rest describes his relationship to humans. And of course, in eternity with resurrected bodies, he will rest with them, but he's desperately wants to rest with them now. Okay. Paragraph A is a very important paragraph here on the handout. God made humans that he might find his home in them. This is a massive concept. God created humans so that he could find his home with them. That's a revelation 21 verse one to eight is all about. That's that fantastic chapter. God dwells with man. I mean, it seems like when you read it, it seems like, well, that seems nice. No, it's the ultimate that the uncreated eternal God would desire to find his home with humans created, created beings with bodies. Now, God will not rest until he finds his home in his people who voluntarily, they voluntarily live in unity with his heart. The definition of rest is when the humans are living voluntarily in agreement, and this is with his heart. This is what David wanted at present. I've said this, but I'll just read it again. At present, God is usually striving with his people. He's striving with their compromise. He's talking them out of it. He's hemming them in. He's boxing them in. He's threatening them. If you do, I really will. Okay. In that case, I won't. Oh, I don't want to have to relate to you this way. Hemming you in on every occasion. I want to rest in you. I want you to be one among many because it takes a corporate group for God to rest. God doesn't rest in one person. He rests in a corporate group of people who voluntarily respond to him. And this is what David was absolutely after. I mean, he was intentionally trying to, to establish this by establishing, by emphasizing and setting forth truth in his generation that people would respond to in a way where God would dwell in their midst. Now the redeemed wouldn't know. God describes himself as resting when his enemies are subdued. When his enemies are conquered, he's resting. But there's many things in our heart that are striving against him. The redeemed volunteer, we, we do voluntary obedience, but only in various degrees in this age. When God has a people, this is very rare, who corporately, I mean together, they corporately live in radical obedience, then God will partially, he doesn't fully rest in his people until we have resurrected bodies after the second coming, but he will partially rest, but it's called God resting in them. Even now he will do that. Even now he will do that. Okay. And I give a couple, well, I have this one passage, I guess I'm going to read it in contrast to this Augustine, you know, back about 400 AD taught that man cannot rest until he finds his rest in God. That's another angle, but that's such a famous quote. I just threw that in there. It is true. We can't rest until we find our rest in God, but that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about God can't rest by the, his definition of rest until he's at peace with humans who voluntarily yield to him corporately involuntarily. And he wants to do it in this age, but it rarely ever happens. Rarely ever happens. Not even revival. You could have a spirit of revival where the Lord visits for a year or two to geographic area. That is not God resting in his people. That's a, that's a breath of God in his mercy because probably a big wars coming around the corner. Almost all literally most revivals you study them in the 10 or 20 years later, there's a great war broke out in the land and God's spirit of revival is not a God resting. God resting is a far higher thing. It's God's habitation. And that's what I believe God's going to do in his church before the second coming of Christ in the partial sense, but in a, in a sense, unprecedented in history. And this is why we exist as a people together is for this. We're not just trying to build big buildings and have a Bible school and have big conferences and have, you know, cool prayer meetings. I mean, I like prayer meetings, but that's not what this thing is about. It's about raising up a response of voluntary response where God rests in his people. And this is at the very center of the study of the life of David B. I have a, you can read those on your own, but I just have passages where God is a striving, but by the way, these notes are on the internet right now. You can go home and download them and have them. And we're making it, we're working on ways, even to where you can access it is accessible before you get here. Oh, anyway, we're working on three, four different things, but being a look at those verses later. But the point is, God is striving. God's grieved. God look at Isaiah 63. I guess I'll read this one. Isaiah 63, 10, they grieved the spirit. This is the people of God. He turned himself against them as an enemy and he fought them. Beloved. I believe God is fighting. He loves his church. He's fighting with the church in America right now. I believe the Lord is fighting with a number of people sitting in this room right now because he loves us so much. He goes, I am going to win this one, but I'm not going to violate your free will. I will not because that's part of the definition of God resting. It has to be voluntary. And David was going after this with all of his heart. Okay. Top of page two. Now here's the dilemma. There's a great dilemma that's often, uh, overlooked or not emphasized. Great dilemma. This is the critical point in this. If you don't understand this next point, then it seems like a whole lot of to do about nothing. I mean, all of this, uh, emphasis and here's the point. There's a great dilemma. If God visits in power, which is rarely ever done in history, he visits in power. He kills, he kills the people who are rebellious or resisting him when his powers manifest. He has to because of holiness. He has to, he cannot visit without destroying what resists him if he comes in power. Now we don't, we kind of know that, but we don't fully buy into that. So we kind of go, well, Lord says, no, no, you don't really understand. That's the only possible way I could come. When I come, I come starring as myself. I don't come with another mask and I cannot deny one part of my personality to woo you with another part. I come as the God who perfectly hates darkness. I come with the God who can have no darkness in my presence. And we go come by your power. And Lord says, tie up. I will. And I'll give you a little swoosh here or there, and you'll write it up in your newsletters and think it's the greatest thing ever. Cause it's the best thing you ever saw. And it's hardly a drop of what I want to do. And he doesn't mind if we do that, but he goes, if I come right now, I really mean this. There is sufficient amount of compromise in our midst, our leaders, our people, all of us, me, you, all of us. There's a sufficient amount. If he came in power, I don't know that I hop would exist. He cannot come in power and deny himself. He says, I need a substantial core in agreement with me in a radical way. And then I can come. We think we're waiting on God. God's waiting on us. Honestly. Well, it's a combination because there's the sovereignty dimension and there's the freewill, but God is far more anxious, not anxious, far more desirous to come than we are to have him. But we're out of touch with how holy he is. And even by the grace of God, I'm talking about even in Jesus will live forever by the, by the gift of righteousness. But I'm talking about our flesh right here on the earth. If he comes in power, he told Moses, Moses, you don't really want me showing up full blast. Yes, I do. Lord. No, you don't Moses. You know, more than any man's ever known about me, but you don't know me very well. You don't want me coming because I cannot turn off part of my being. When I come, when I come, I'm always God, wherever I'm at. I can't turn off part of who I am. The better deal is for me to stay distant. People say, Oh, we want more power. Why this way that it's not because God's mean it's actually because he's nice. He goes, no, I would be so disruptive. If I came, I would, I would move all the furniture around. I would completely change the interior design of everything you're doing. If I, if I lived with you and we say, do it, do it. And the Lord says, okay, I will. Here's the deal. I want you to obey me now for a year or two, which is a warmup for me, changing it when I come. And if you want to obey me now, you surely won't when I come and then double and triple the intensity of it. So people that say, come on, we'll do anything. He goes, no, it doesn't work that way. When I come, the intensity is so much higher. You must do anything now for a few years and, and, and get a, get a history in me. And then when I come and double and triple the intensity, you'll be able to go with me. We live in this delusion that we would obey if God showed up in power and he doubled and tripled the stakes and the standard, but we won't obey now. And the Lord says, no, no, you're just like all the others. You don't understand how life works. That doesn't work that way. If you won't obey now, you won't obey them. And that's what David understood. And that's what Psalm 101 is really all about. Okay. Look at this Exodus chapter 33 verse one. God tells, uh, Moses go up from here to the land and I'll send my angel verse two, but I will not go up myself because if I go up, I will consume you. I will kill you. If I go up with you, he goes, I'll send a big angel. You will be dazzled. You will be excited. He will slay all of your enemies. And Moses goes, no, if you don't go, I don't want to go up. And he goes, Moses, you don't know me very well. I'll send a big angel. And if I send an angel, most of you will live. If I come, most of you will die. You, I will consume you. And Moses cried out and God came and he did consume them. He did exactly what he said he would do. And even Moses himself could not enter the promised land because he rose up and profaned God in the midst of one of his visitations profane the name of the Lord. I don't want to get in that right now, but they go to heaven. God loves him. It's not about God, not loving him. It's about, God can not turn off part of his being when he manifests himself in the natural. And that's the part we don't grasp. And that's the part David did understand, but David understood it through some pretty difficult circumstances of him blowing it and it happening in his day. Like the next one, we're gonna look at, we're gonna look at two of them here. Second Samuel chapter six, David arose to bring up the ark. Now the ark of God is this little box, you know, this little, you know, it's a little box, a couple of feet by about six feet, but the glory of God rested on that box. The box wasn't important. It was the fact that God chose the box is why it was important, but God's power rested on the ark. I mean, it was like a ball of glory rested on the ark. And God says, even a little bit of my overflow glory, touching that ark, that ark is holy. You can not handle the ark in any way close to unholy, not because I'm touchy. No, no, it's not that way. I cannot turn off my personality when human sin is in my presence. I hate darkness perfectly and I will destroy darkness whenever it comes near me. So I'll stay the distance. So he says, but I'm gonna put my anointing on the ark. So verse three, they set the ark of God on a new cart. Now those of you been around, you know this, but those of you that are new, you don't, that is non-biblical. You don't put an ark, the ark on a new cart. I don't want to go five minutes on what you do with the ark, but this was completely a non-biblical thing. It's like, no, David, you're breaking the pattern of scripture. And there's, there's really important reasons. Again, I don't want to go off on that. Verse six, Uzzah put his hand out because the, these oxen were carrying it, you know, on this cart and it was stumbling and, and, and Uzzah was, it's like, well, I got to help God out. It'd be, it's the ground. That'd be horrible. You know? I mean, what if the ark hit the, I mean, what if you're like carrying the casket of the president? You trip and you drop the casket at a worldwide TV. I mean, what a horrible thing. This would be a national embarrassment of the ark. So he jumps over and touches it. And God's anger breaks out. Not because God is pushy because the, they had no idea what it meant to be in the immediate presence of God. And we crave for revival. We're crying out for trouble. If we're not for real. Oh, we want revival, but it's trouble. And David understood this. That's what Psalm 101, but we've got to get to it here. But once we get there, we'll be able to go fast, but anyway, he struck the man dead. You know, when David says in Psalm 19 verse 14, it's not on the notes. He says, Lord, deliver me from presumptuous sins. He means sins like this presumptuous sins from, uh, mishandling the holiness of God in ways that I don't understand. And David became a man of great understanding about this before it was over. First Chronicles 21 is a more severe than ever. It says, uh, Satan stood up against Israel and moved Israel, moved David to number Israel. And that was real serious because Satan is breathing on David and David has this heightened energy to know how powerful his army is. It's demonic because a King and the Bible was not supposed to multiply horses. They are not supposed to multiply their armies and boasted them. They're supposed to trust the Lord about five things they're not supposed to do. And this is a direct violation. And David knows this again, if, if you're new with this concept, you may think, well, he counted them. What's the big deal? No, he was throwing his chest out saying, because he ended up with an army of about 1.3 million people, something like that 1.4 million. And he had the mightiest army in the, in the whole world of his time. I mean, he had a absolutely powerful army and he just like, wow, it's what Nebuchadnezzar did. And Daniel four, when he put his chest out and God struck him because David has, he's conquered everybody. Nobody could defeat his army. So now he wants to count it. He's defeated all of his enemies by the power of God. There are no enemies, but he wants to count it because he's got the most powerful army on the earth. And Satan's breathing on his spirit, just like the very similar to what happened. Nebuchadnezzar, when he put his chest out and looked over the balcony of the city and Daniel four and said, oh, my mighty city, I am awesome. And God struck him, said, no, you're not awesome. You're the most powerful man on the earth, Nebuchadnezzar, because I gave you that role. And even Joab, this guy didn't have a whole lot of discernment, but he said, David, this is, I didn't put it in the text here, but if you read the whole story, he goes, don't do this. This is really bad for you to strut about how powerful you are when we don't even have any enemies because God slew them all for us. Why, why strut? And why David did it anyway? So God sent the plague and 70,000 men were struck dead by a plague. And God talked to David, he says, you cannot move in my power, defeat all of the enemies, have authority like no man on the earth, and then strut before my holiness like this. You can't do this, not because I don't like you. You're my favorite guy because I can't change my personality. And I hate pride. I hate it. And I destroy it when I manifest my presence and I'm all over you, David, I'm all over your life and everything you're about. And I will destroy whatever strikes up against me when my power, my powers manifest. And when you can read the story more in detail. Well, in Acts chapter five, we know the story because the great revival breaks out in the book of Acts. So Ananias and Sapphira, they lie. It's a simple lie. It's a lie that didn't hurt anybody. I mean, they didn't take money from anybody. They were boasting, but the anointing of the spirit was in power in Jerusalem and they were struck dead. If there would not have been a spirit of power, they would not have been struck dead. I mean, I'm sure there's plenty of people that lie all the time, probably a handful of them in this room. Nobody's even worried about being struck dead because there's no power in our midst, but so little we have to squint to see it, which I appreciate it. I do. I don't mind if I squint, it's better than having none. I just want a lot more. The Lord says, are you sure? Do you know your liars will be struck dead? You will be struck dead if you lie. I want your power. Give me another few minutes. Lord says, I thought so. I thought we were in agreement. It's because the power was being manifest. Okay, Roman numeral four, the resting place of the Holy Spirit. When God rests, again, when he rests, it means he's at unity with people on the earth, which rarely ever happens. It's happened so few times in history. A spirit of revival is not the same thing as God resting in a geographic area. It's rarely ever happened. But God longs for it to happen. It hasn't happened rare because God doesn't want it to. It's because men have not lived in a way where it would be good for them if God came in power, because remember, God can't change his personality. Acts chapter two, there they all in one accord praying in Acts one, then in Acts two, we know the story. That was pretty anemic, mighty wind, wasn't it? Let me try that again. Well, forget it. That was horrible. I was imagining it was gonna be awesome when I did that. Okay. This mighty Russian wind broke in. The fire of God fills the room. But beloved, I'm talking about God's resting on 120 people. So what's happening? Well, that's why Ananias fire got struck dead because of this, this, this portal, this portals and a large open gate. There was an open gate in the spirit and it broke in. God loves to break in and power on his people. That's what he did. They were all in unity. Now, beloved, a lot of folks, people talk about getting in unity. Unity is easiest thing in the world to get into. It really is. Unity with you and me is really easy if you and me are unified with God. And if we don't are not living in unity with God, I'm talking about our eyes, our speech, our money and our time. If we're not living in unity with God, we can never get in unity with each other, no matter how many times we hold hands and sing choruses in citywide meetings. Unity is only possible in the overflow of being in profound unity with God's heart. Then be unified with one another is easy. A lot of people put tons of energy on these, on the body of Christ living in this carnality, this compromise, this lethargy and working all these hours on us, getting us all unified like this is totally impossible to get humans unified. They aren't unified with God. And when they're unified with God, they're very easily unified together. Getting unified is easy when we get it with God. So I want to put our attention on meekness, faithfulness, abandonment to God and the secret place in our heart. And we'll have instant overflow together if we get people there. Carnal people, compromising people, which is basically the whole body of Christ in our nation, nearly, certainly the high, high nitrogen. They can't bond together and they can't be unified in any profound way because all of the obstacles are in the way. The deep bonding that happens is the fruit of the Holy Spirit and power in the human heart. I'm all for people still trying it, but I know that I'm wanting to line up. The way I want to get you guys in unity with each other is by pressing you into the Sermon on the Mount lifestyle. You will show up in love with one another, with a happy servant spirit, with easy to bonded hearts with one another if I press you into the Sermon on the Mount or not me, but whoever. But that's, you know, as a leader, I want to be like David, meaning I want to be very intentional about creating an environment where the Holy Spirit can be in our midst. A, I want to say something that's important to understand. Paragraph A, first sentence, Jesus's earthly ministry, I want you to get this, resulted in an unprecedented miracle of 120 people living in deep unity with God. Let me say, here's the point I want to make. When, when men looked at Jesus's ministry after three and a half years of miracles, and you hear it all the time, all he had was 120 in the upper room, Jesus might say, well, wait a second, give me a shot at this. There have never been 120 committed people to God ever in one room ever in history. This is the biggest explosion in human history was 120 people deeply rooted in God together. My point being is that the 120 after his miracle ministry seems like a failure, but it was the high point of human history. Never has so many people been so deeply committed to God in one room. So it's not Jesus didn't fail. He broke a record by getting 120 people. I don't think there's ever been 10 profoundly committed to God people in one room before this time. Maybe there had been 10, but certainly not 120. This was, this was a landslide record breaking. And we have this idea that we're supposed to get a thousand people to do it. And Jesus's leadership with full signs and wonders for three and a half years in one little country, you know, 30 miles by 60 could get only 120. And that was record breaking beloved. We only need about 30 or 40 abandoned people in here to get an open heaven over this city. But I mean, really abandoned. I don't mean kind of abandoned. I don't mean American abandoned. That didn't count at all around the throne of God. We only need about 30 or 40 of them. I don't know the real number, maybe 10, 120 would be unsurpassed in history. If we hit that, that 120 was the high mark of human history. So I want you to feel the glory of this, not how small it was. I want you to see how big it was, but I want you now to see the possibility of it. You know, it takes a thousand people at IHOP. It takes a thousand to get it to get 50 or a hundred radicals. And that's a really good percentage. If that's true. I've said this to folks for, for, for, you know, since the beginning of IHOP, I say, you know, we have 300 staff members. I go, if we have 300 staff members, it takes 300 to get 20 or 30 with nobody's looking totally committed people. It takes 300 full-time intercessors to get 30 radical ones or five or six radical ones. We have about a thousand in our midst that between Bible students and interns and staff and, and all that, we didn't have nearly a thousand people in our midst that are nearly doing this full time. And I tell you this, it takes a thousand to get 50, but we don't have 50 yet. And my point isn't, my point isn't to say, aren't we bad? That's not my point. My point is to show the potential of 50 radical people, because my guess is it doesn't exist yet here. I'm talking about the Psalm 101 type Christianity, which is basically the Sermon on the Mount. So as a leader, I'm not looking at a thousand and going bah humbug at the obvious superficiality in many lives. I'm not looking at that and saying I'm discouraged. I'm saying a thousand, if we can get 50, I guarantee you we can get an open heaven over the city and it will touch the whole planet. One portal, just using that word that is being used by so many prophetic people around, one open heaven, and there will be waves of glory that will shake nations out of any geographic area that that open heaven happens in. If God has a resting place. But I'm telling you, the Lord's not going to change his personality for Americans. He can't. It's not that he won't, he can't. He wouldn't anyway. He says, no, no, I'm not a, I'm not like, well, you know, it's 21st century. You do have a lot of cool TV options and other things. So you know what? I'm going to lower the standard of who I am because I know I like you guys so much. He says, the truth is I like you so much. I won't visit. That's how much I like you. And that he means it. But I have this David thing. And so do you. I don't mean unique. It's not a I'm wanting to see a dwelling place of God in this city built. It only takes 50 or a hundred, 120 is like, again, it's not likely we'll get 120. Jesus got 120 after full signs and wonders. And he had like a really good teaching ministry. A really good one. You think, you think his end time G12 groups were not something else when he appeared for 40 days in the resurrection and told them about the things of the kingdom. That was the hottest G12. You can imagine. John wrote the book of revelation and the overflow of it. And a few angels visiting him on that Island. Okay, let's move on. Let's go top of page three. Roman numeral five. Roman numeral five, David's revelation of God's desire to rest. David understood God wanted to rest in people. That was one of the greatest revelations David had. God wanted to rest in humans in this age. We would call it. He had a vision for revival, but it was far more than that. There's not very many guys in the old Testament that had a vision for God to come rest in the midst of people on the earth. It was a very, very radical, radical, radical vision. And even today in the church world, people are interested in church growth. They're even interested in large meetings, you know, where a couple thousand people fall down when you pray for them meetings, which I like, I like those kinds of meetings, but you start pushing the, the, the, the, uh, details holding the line for God resting, manifesting his glory beyond the book of acts and a people that would live in that kind of meekness for a season before him. Cause he'll, he'll require it. Not so we earn the visitation. He doesn't require that we live that way for a season to earn it. He requires it so that it's a safety precaution for when he comes, you know, it's the guy who's going to go work out and he hadn't done it. And so the first day he does 500 setups and he can't even move, uh, for a week. I didn't read that in a book just for the record. And so he was supposed to, supposed to built up to it for a while. And the Lord saying, I mean, you're not earning my visitation, but the visitation, the meekness for a season and the radical is, is a precaution. So when I visit their safety, it's not earning it at all. It's coming into agreement. Psalm 132, this is so awesome. Understanding of who David is and his leadership. Psalm 132. The Psalmist is praying and he says this Lord, remember David. And now we're now he's going to, the Psalmist is going to now going to talk about David. He says, Lord, do you remember verse two, how David swore to you, how David vowed to you? And there's no exaggeration. David really vowed to God and he meant it in Psalm 101 is the mechanics or not the mechanics, the practicalities of that vow and his lifestyle and his leadership style. Here's what David vowed. I want you to catch the weight of this verse two. He vowed and the Psalmist is telling God, he goes, don't you remember how awesome that was because it was real. Surely I will not go to the chamber of my house. David said, he vowed. Surely I will not give sleep to my eyes. Surely. And he gives a bunch of phrases and you can study it all later on your own. I will not do my own things in essence until verse five, there's a dwelling place, a resting place for God on the earth. And he goes, and I want it in this city in Jerusalem. He goes, God, you can visit anywhere you want, but I am not going to rest. I'm not going to let go. I'm going to give up my own pursuits. I'm not going to build my own house, my own name, my own ministry, my only thing I'm not going to do anything until you break in, in the city with in a resting place. And this vow was so real, so authentic that it made the scripture, the Holy spirit's bearing witness to the fact that this vow got in the Bible means the Holy spirit. So that was a real vow. He meant it and he walked it out. Beloved God is raising up in this room. Even now people that are making this same resolve to build a dwelling place for God. This is life of David, vintage life of David, the life of David. Isn't just, he trusted God for battles and, and trusted God for power. The vintage life of David is that he surely, he vowed that he would give up all of his personal pursuits and tell there was a demonstration of power in his city that was continual. And I, I, my guess is there's 50 or a hundred people, maybe even 200. I don't know, maybe 500. I don't know. It's none of my business how, what the number is, but it could be some hundreds in this room right now that are making this vow. Some of you more serious than others, but you mean it. You look at your life and what you can do and can't do. You say, no, no, forget it. Take all of my opportunities, throw them away. Surely until there's a breaking in of power somewhere. And I might as well pick the city I'm at here. Lord is what David said. Of course, the Lord told him Jerusalem. Anyway, you can go ahead and read Psalm 132 on your own later. Psalm 69 B it's the next paragraph. David bore great reproach in this vow. Psalm 69. David said, for your sake, Lord, he goes, I get, I bear reproach. People are angry with me because of the way I live. They are angry with me. They are talking evil against me. Not only because I live this way, because I push it and I want others to do it too. And I tell people it's right. And it's necessary. He says, look at this. He goes, I bear reproach. Look at verse eight. He goes, I am a stranger. My brothers roll their eyes. When somebody says my name, they go, David, he was the eighth of eight boy in the family. He was several girls as well. So about 10 or 15 kids. And they said, David and his brothers went right. Guy is loony. He's like living in another world. And David says, you're getting, you're understanding me now. Yes, I am living in another world. Thank you. You're grasping it. His brothers, he was a stranger to them. He was an alien to his mother's children, his sisters, and his other brothers that were because, uh, you know, there were several wives in the family type deal. He was an alien. Meaning when they looked at him, they go, we don't grasp you. We have no grid for understanding the way you live and what you talk about, what you do makes no sense to any of us. And here's what David said. I bear this reproach verse nine, because of zeal for your house, because I'm building, I'm living out a vow to build a dwelling place for you for zeal is consumed me. He says, it's eaten me up. And he goes in their reproach. Uh, the way that people don't really like you, God is the way they don't like me. They don't like this. And he goes on and talks about it. He goes, when I wept and I chastened my soul with fasting became my reproach. I talk about fasting. I get a lot of response here, but I get another response here as well. And I get a response there. Legalism, legalism, legalism. It's a reproach to call people to the fasted lifestyle, but beloved that is our glory and our reward. This is, that's a cool thing. It's the Lord's reproach. I hear constantly legalism, legalism. And I think of Psalm 69 zeal for your house has consumed me. I am very happy. I don't mean to be, uh, triumphant about her in a very happy to bear reproach because I went to chase in my soul with fasting as a lifestyle. Very happy to, for people to, to write it off as legalism within the staff and outside the staff. It's just legalism. It's too intense. It's crazy. It's not realistic. What about grace? This is all about grace building a dwelling for God on the earth. Look at this. He says, I became a byword to them. Now here's the, here's the interesting one. Verse 12, the guys who sit in the gate, that's the elders. Those are the respectable guys, but the drunkards at the tavern sang songs about how off David was. It'd be the terror that young guys, they would make up songs to taunt him. I mean, the elders in the gates, one thing, but when the drunkards are singing songs against you at the top, at the bars, that guy's crazy. I want to ask you this is your zeal to build God a house. Does it even register to anybody that it would disturb them? Or, or are we honestly just so much like everything else that's going on with a fasting day on Tuesday that we do half the day on? Is it really that we're honestly just like everything else with a few terminologies and a couple of fasting days. And that's why the folks that we relate to are not disturbed. God's raising up some people with zeal in their spirit for God's house. Roman numeral six, God is seeking. God is seeking. I have a bunch of verses there. I won't read. He's seeking. His eyes are going to, he's seeking for people all over the earth. His eyes are searching for David. He's searching. You know why he's searching? He can't find very many. He's not looking for people to get their name in the Lamb's book of life. He likes that for sure. That's not what he's searching for. He's searching for those in whom they will be loyal to him and he will be strong on their behalf. Second Chronicle 69. I mean, of course he's seeking to save those who are lost, but that's a standard understanding. But I'm talking about something other than that right now. As valuable as that is or none of us would be saved if he didn't seek for us to get saved. But I'm not talking about that now. I'm talking about something wholly other than. He's now seeking among the redeemed. His eyes are searching to show himself strong, that they will be totally loyal to him. It's a different type of searching. Top of page four. Well, we got to Psalm 101. I got enough notes. I'm just going to tell you what it, I could kind of advertise these couple pages to you and you can, that's what the notes are for, so you can look at them. The first four verses, David talks about his own personal life. The next four verses, he talks about his, what he enforces and what he requires in his leadership team. And this is again, this is a side of David that, that doesn't, does not often emphasize. Because David wasn't trying to have, get everybody just to toe the line. He was trying, he was living under the power of a vow to build a dwelling place for God in the earth. He vowed to God and he starts off. Let's restart in verse two. I'm Roman numeral eight. I'm just going to kind of read just that one paragraph and end with that. I'll just make a couple statements and the notes will cover it. Yeah. Just let's go to the top of page four. Roman numeral seven. Roman numeral seven. Oops. I said eight. Roman numeral seven. There you go. We'll just look at that. Yeah. Verse two, I'll just abbreviate it. David said, I will behave wisely. Here's that word wisely now that we had back in the first page one. In first Samuel 18, it says it three times, he behaved himself wisely. What's he mean? He says, I'm going to live in a perfect way. Now, this is the same, uh, idea that Jesus in the sermon on the Mount says, be perfect as my heavenly father is. He doesn't mean, uh, the fact that we don't have the power to be perfect, but he means pursue a hundred percent obedience in every area of your life. I said this to the staff the other day, 90, not 98% obedience is, is there's a certain thing you get in God at 90% obedience. But let me tell you this, this is true. I know this to be true because I've done it right. And I've done it not wrong. The last 2% is double the power on your heart. That is an absolute fact. You live 98% obedient and you have one area in your life where you're dragging your feet on. That area is the area that will release double the power on your heart. The difference between 98% obedience. I don't mean attaining it. I mean, pursuing it. No one attains it. I mean, we have made a covenant with our eyes. Like Job said, we are going to absolutely look at nothing that stirs our hearts in a wrong way. Nothing. I mean, then there's true sense. Never, never. And when we do it, we war against it in repentance. I don't mean we make a big noise about it. That's not what I mean by war against it. Meaning we don't camp out and say, you know, I'm just going to do this for a while. We, we take a stand and declare war. And that's what David did. David didn't walk this out a hundred percent. He pursued it. And when he stumbled, he repented fiercely and would not camp. We're going to make a covenant with our speech. We're going to use our time, time, and we're going to use our money for things. David says, I'm going to walk perfect. He didn't walk perfect, but he pursued walking perfect. And the pursuing is where the power is, not just the attaining. I don't know if anyone's ever attained it. Paul, the apostle said he hadn't attained it yet. Beloved, you get a bunch of young people where 168 hours a week, the entire 168 belongs to the Lord. It doesn't mean that they're intense for 168 hours. That's not what I mean. I don't mean intense for every minute because it's the will of God to rest. I'm talking about, we look at our time. We look at our money. We look at our words. We look at our eyes and we seek to have a hundred percent obedience. That is where power touches the human spirit right there. 98% of that is still pretty good, but nothing like a hundred percent. I've lived at a hundred percent for seasons of time where, I mean, I sought to have every word, every hour, every dollar, and every glance of my eye under the leadership of the Holy Spirit. Never ever did it, but I've sought to. And when I would fail, I would repent and go hard. And I've lived plenty of time where I just dropped down a notch. Mostly, always, this is the area of my speech. The money and the time and the eyes were not near as hard as the speech. James said, if you get your tongue under order, your entire being will come under order. James chapter 3 verse 2 says, you bribed your tongue, not just, it says your whole body, but all of your passions will come under order. If you get your tongue in order, you focus on those four things and your entire being will begin to follow behind you. He says, whoa, this dwelling thing is getting intense. Well, the cry of David in verse two, he says, oh, when will you come to me? He wants the dwelling. That's the cry right there. Oh God, I need the breakthrough. I need the breakthrough. I need it not just for me personally, but for my city. When will you come and power the dwelling place? That's the whole dwelling place doctrine right there. God resting, right? One phrase, when will you come? Wow. He goes on and says, I will walk within my house with a perfect heart. Now again, I don't, he never attained it. You know why it's in his house. The house is the most familiar, comfortable place. That's the place where we're most comfortable to compromise is when the doors are shut. It's late at night and nobody can see. David said in my house, I want to walk perfect. Again, he didn't do it, but he sought it. And that's the power. The power isn't well, the power, it would be cool to do it, but I've just never heard of anybody that did it besides Jesus. Verse three, I will set nothing wicked before my eyes. Nothing, nothing. And he goes on to talk about it more and more. And Oh man, there's every phrase is so filled with stuff. Verse six, he's going to talk about his leadership style. He says, I'm going to build a leadership team that they are faithful. I'm going to build a team of faithful people. And he goes, and if they're not faithful, it's not that David was impatient with them. This is the side of David that, that many people don't know about it. He says, nah, not faithful. I want a leadership team that is building what will attract God. David's zeal wasn't because he didn't like their style is because he wanted that which attracted God. He wanted a resting place for God. And David boy, verse six to eight, he dealt with it. He confronted it. And again, he didn't confront it because he couldn't take it one-on-one with them. He confronted because he wanted, he knew that if the government of his team, if the government of his ministry, which was the government of the nation was in unity, God would visit the nation in power. And he said, no, I'm not giving up. I'm not giving up my vision for my friends. I've made a vow that God's going to have a dwelling place in the earth and the language. I broke it down a little bit here. Oh, my goodness. The language. I want to tell you Psalm 101 is, uh, you know, maybe I throw Psalm 16 in there too, but Psalm 101 would be the most powerful and personal line by line phrase by phrase life of David Psalm that feeds my spirit. So I'll just leave you with that to go dig it deeper. Let's stand.