Michael Koulianos emphasizes the profound truth that God first loves us, which is the foundation for our love and worship in return. He encourages the congregation to recognize the importance of God's presence, warning against the dangers of choosing lesser loves that distract from a genuine relationship with Him. Koulianos highlights that true love for God manifests through obedience and devotion, which can only be sustained by continually receiving His love. He urges the church to protect the glory of God by prioritizing His presence over worldly measures of success. Ultimately, the sermon calls for a deeper understanding of God's love, which transforms our hearts and leads to authentic worship.

When I walk in to a Sunday morning or Sunday night, regardless of what I'm going through, I feel the kiss in the air and I just feel the gentle voice of the Lord say, everything's going to be alright. Everything's going to be alright, because this, intangible, cannot be taught, and really cannot be stolen, it can only be relinquished. The devil himself cannot rob a people of God's presence, that can only be relinquished and given over. A lot of the times you don't know you're giving it over, you're just choosing something good over him. Does that make sense? How many of you were tracking with me? How many of you were just like, this is the weirdest church in the world? Where's the PowerPoint? You're never going to get a PowerPoint out of me, not that they're bad. Jess is, no she's not. No, Rion, no, he won't either. Jenna, never seen her do one either. So, if you need PowerPoints, somebody on this staff has to start doing PowerPoints just to make people happy. But it's okay if you don't understand it here. Let it get here first and then God will renew your mind. Let it, just open your heart, if you have no clue what I'm talking about. Just let your heart be open. So if you can keep it in your heart, it'll find its way to your mind. Remember when Mary received the word of the Lord from Gabriel, what does the Bible say? That she pondered these and she kept these words in her heart, right? I promise you, she didn't figure everything out about what the angel said that her pain would reveal the thoughts and hearts of many. You think she just figured that out? That was progressive. So what I can say to you as your pastor is I have been in this presence before. When Bill came and he wept, remember that Sunday night? And he said, I've tasted this before. I've been here before. He said, I know this. I know what, I have tasted of this before. And then he wept and said, it's beautiful. Do you remember that? If not, it's on my, I posted it. It was just so glorious to hear that and encouraging. At the same time, a great responsibility comes with that. What I'm learning over and over again is that the nation is awakening. I mean, people are driving in from all over America to get to these events. How many of you came in from out of state just to be in Sunday morning church? Lift your hands, wave at us. God bless you, we welcome you. God bless you. So you're here in a hotel room. Oh, whatever, not a room. This would be a big suite, wouldn't it? In a ballroom. And you're here because the Lord drew you here. And I just want to say to our church family that that's very rare. It's very rare. When our students go back home, a lot of them will say, we miss just being in the room. We're watching it online, but we miss the room. Jenna just had a little baby, little baby Beau. Her and John have been home taking care of the baby and they've been watching online and Jenna sends a text going, I just miss being in the room. Well, what is it about that? What is it? It's the Lord. It's his presence. And so I feel to say this in front of God's people, some things need to be spoken of in private, but some things need to be released publicly so that the church witnesses it in prophetic moments. Some things have to happen publicly. To our leadership team, we could all lose this. To our interns, to our volunteers, we could all lose this, to our staff, to our worship team. We could all lose this and most have. Most have. It's not to say that people still don't get saved in their meetings or healed, but we've all been in rooms where people are getting healed and there's word of knowledge going forth, but there's no beauty. It's a gift operating outside of the presence, right? Maybe our worship will just continue to be to explode, I don't know, but that doesn't matter. That's not why we worship, right? But we could be on the biggest platforms in the world, the biggest stadiums, the sin in the world. It doesn't matter if the Lord's pleasure is lifted. And I'm here to tell you, it happens much more than it does not. We have to think that way. It doesn't mean we think negatively, but some of the green rooms I've been in, I've had the honor of peeking behind the veil. And when I sit with fathers, most of the conversations are about, and mothers, are about what God did 20 years ago. And while I'm listening and receiving the testimonies and enjoying them, and they're stirring me, at the same time, in the bottom of my heart, under my breath, I'm going, Lord, don't ever let it be said of me. I wanna speak of your love in the now, in the moment. I want more of your light on my life now than in those days. Before I teach on the Holy Spirit, I felt like we had to go here. What would cause this to lift? Number one, choosing lesser lovers. Choosing lesser lovers. Those lesser lovers are notoriety. The arm of the flesh. In other words, building with the world's wisdom. Choosing marketing above prayer. Do you understand? Things like that. Number three, money. The love of money. Why do we do what we do? Why do we go where we go? Do we only go to cities where we think we're gonna make budget? Or do we go where the Holy Spirit's leading us? Does, do you follow me? Do we come with requirements? I can't tell you the amount of, and sadly, of worship leaders that we have told not to come, who initially were coming to our events because they began to make demands. And little J-Dog over there is the one who sends them home. Jess, that's her rebuke name, J-Dog. The hoops come out. When the hoops come out and her hair's pulled back tight, we got a problem, and she sends them all home. We don't care how you sing, or how well-known you are, what kind of following you have. If you come in in a way that is against the Bible, you don't sing here. And that's not a prideful thing. It's protecting the glory. It's just not gonna happen. And one of, one person once said, well, I'm just not coming. And Jess said, well, that's not gonna change things for us because we never tell people who are coming. We never tell the church who's coming. So they're coming, whether you come or not, the Lord's here. That's why we come. See, you have to make tough decisions and protect the presence of God. When you start thinking with the mind of the flesh and the arm of the flesh is at work, you think like in the flesh, you will move in the flesh. So you start thinking, well, I need this person who's blowing up. Why do you need them? Why do you need them? Do you need them to fill seats? And why do the seats have to fill? What's really at the root there? Does the filled room make you feel better about you? Or does it mean more donors? See, these are the things that come in that must be rejected. Must be rejected at all costs. And this isn't negativity. I'm telling you, this is how you keep what the Lord is doing. I wrote this down. Listen, the only way to keep what you have is to intensify what you're doing. You see, in the kingdom, there's only one way to keep what's in your possession, to increase your devotion. You can't even sit still. It's not even a matter of striving. You can't just say, I'm just gonna stay right here. The only way to keep what you have is to pursue more. That's the only way. So you grow in holiness. You grow in devotion. You grow in purity. You grow in fidelity to the word. You grow in time with Jesus. And that's the only way to keep what he's already given you. The moment, listen, the moment we touch the glory, we are on the way to losing his glory. It's interesting to me. Think of this. Is this okay? I know this is Sunday night talk, but how many of you know the Holy Spirit? It's always day in heaven, and he doesn't really care if it's morning service or night service. Listen, listen. The priests were commissioned to carry the glory. They carried the ark. And they could not touch the ark without carrying it on poles. This is the Old Testament. Now, at one point, the ark wobbled, and one of the priests touched the ark, and he died on the spot. Why were poles required? Because the poles speak of the cross. There were two poles. So they carried them like this. The ark had rings. Speaking of God's eternal nature, they were gold rings. So the cross is the way into the rings of God's eternal nature. And that's what causes you to carry the glory. You put the cross on your shoulder. You can't carry the glory without the cross. And the cross says no to Michael and yes to God. That's the nature of the cross. It's know me, yes you, and then you reward me with a ton of you, and I forget about what I even surrendered. That's the beauty. Nobody outgives God, yes, financially, but even when it comes to surrender. He said, oh, I've given you everything. And then there's one touch in his presence, and three seconds later, you go, what did I give you? What did I do? Where did I move to? What did I leave everything for? Yeah, that was a hard move. But how worth it, right? So the priests carried the glory of God. But there's a difference between carrying the glory and touching it. You touch it, you die. You carry it, you come alive. And so I feel prophetically that this is a, this isn't a judgment at all. This is a protective word for us. Don't touch it. You know, we should all have this default button where every time somebody goes, oh my God, you're incredible, you go, Jesus is amazing. I know I've heard different perspectives on that, but I have news for you. Every perspective requires the Holy Spirit. So my default button has been, it's the Lord. It's the Lord. The Lord did it. The Lord drew them. The Lord saved them. The Lord healed them. The Lord opened the scriptures to me so I could teach them to you. It's the Lord, it's the Lord, it's the Lord. So our default button here has to be this. We point them to Jesus. Now, Amy said something that it was so wonderful to be there, so wonderful that it didn't even feel like we offered him everything. But I watched that girl dance. It's like a full-blown CrossFit session, flags flying. I thought, Janae's gonna get hit today because Janae likes to go back and forth. She's stepping around. In the back of my head, I'm going, I hope she knows where she's at. She's about to take one to the face. Amy, Amy whips them around. Natasha whips those things around. It can get dangerous up there. But the reality is, they get home, I can tell you, they offered the Lord something on the road and flew back all day yesterday and got up early this morning and they're right there in the pocket today again, offering something. Our whole team is. My body's tired, but my insides are coming alive right now. The reality is, it is an offering. But you know what? When we're asked about the offering, our answer should be, it's all for Jesus. It's beautiful. That has to be the pulse of the church. Point people to Jesus and we'll be okay. Amen? Amen. Okay, you receive that? Okay, okay. All right, take your Bibles. Thank you, Joel. I needed you to play behind that one. That was the Novocaine for the warning. We ended last week with Ephesians chapter four, verse three, being diligent to preserve the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. Remember, we're talking about the love of the Holy Spirit. That's Ephesians 4, three. Colossians, actually, let's go to Colossians 1, eight. Sorry, go to Colossians 1, eight. Do you love the word of God? Yes. I'm gonna start in verse seven because that'll give it context. Paul here is greeting brothers in Christ. Verse seven, as you also learn from Epaphras, our dear fellow servant, who is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf, who also declared to us your love in the spirit. Say this out loud. I can only love by the spirit. I can only love in the spirit. I can only love through the spirit. Through the spirit. It's a wonderful revelation to begin to understand that without the Lord, I cannot love. The world's view of love is the complete opposite of God's view of love. The world's view of love is I wanna do whatever I want, I need you to agree with that. God's view of love is no greater love can a man have than to lay his life down. All right, so love to the Lord looks like obedience. Write these down. Love to the Lord looks like time with Jesus. I'll give you scriptures for all these. Love to the Lord looks like sacrifice and many other things. All of this, all of these, I should say, are impossible outside the work of the spirit. Now, I mentioned last week that, I mentioned John's, and you guys should all know it by now. It's in one of his epistles, so you're gonna have to go dig it up. I read it to you last week. John said, we love him, now he tells us why, or the cause of loving him. Because he first loved us. So that means that a revelation of the Lord's love actually gives me the opportunity to return that love by the spirit and offer the Lord what he deserves, but it can only be in response to what I experience myself. So I want you to just pretend that your heart is a mirror and that the greatest way to love Jesus more is to point that mirror at the Lord's face and shine it back at the Lord. By the way, that's called worship. That's called worship. Most likely, the first moment of worship in the scripture is the moment Adam came alive, where God breathed into Adam and Adam took a big breath in return. I don't wanna go down that road, but. Just put it this way, his breath may have meant a lot more than we think. You have to come on a Sunday night or go to Jesus School for me to unpack that one, because if I give it to you partially, it could mess you up. But let's just say his breath meant something. He was releasing the breath he had received. God takes Adam, he's fearfully and wonderfully made, perfectly designed, think of that, but still dead. Oh, and there you have some Western church. Beautifully, wonderfully designed, amazing strategy, amazing structure, amazing facilities, right? Amazing this, amazing that. No breath, it's still dead. Now the only way to come alive in the spirit so that you can love God is to not wiggle your way out of his hand. I'm even gonna say that, Adam laid dead, fearfully and wonderfully made, but he wasn't moving around. A moving, spastic heart makes it really tough for God to find your nostrils to breathe into. That's what we do, we're just everywhere. And if we're still too long, we just don't like the stillness, so we just go, I gotta do something. I've been in this room for 40 minutes, my prayer list is, I went through that in two minutes. Michael's crazy, I can't spend an hour with God. Not realizing that resting in his presence, in his hand, actually creates the opportunity to receive his breath. And that's what the Bible says happened in Genesis, that Adam is in the hand of the Lord, he'd been fearfully, wonderfully made, his inside's perfect, think of the human body. I mean, everything that's amazing on Earth that's been created, I just wanna remind you, came from the human mind. However, without God's breath, Adam is still dead. So God breathes into Adam's nostrils, and he breathed a certain type of breath, the breath of life. And the Bible says that in that moment, Adam became a living soul, he came alive. Adam received the breath, and then began to breathe. That is how you worship the Lord. It was the first moment of worship. Ah, ah. So a culture of worship requires a culture of receiving the Spirit. You can only give back, you can only love the Lord if you realize you are first being loved, and have been loved. We love him because he first loved us. So John, by the way, is known as John the B. He won't even take credit for the love he has. Is anyone hearing me? Is my boring you? All right, is this a funeral? All right, don't make me shake this. Some of y'all came for SeaWorld, we'll start early. Oh my. Probably the worst day of my life was having to chaperone a bus for my son's first grade class to SeaWorld. I guarantee you that stuff happens in hell. Buses filled with kids. And you're not allowed to buy anything in those places. You know that, they have these rules. So I had like 27 year olds going, can I have that, can I have that, can I have that, can I have that? And they wouldn't, the chaperones couldn't even buy snacks. Anyhow, sorry, I'm just self, I'm ministering to myself. Strengthening myself on the Lord. Thanking God for my deliverance. What was I saying? Oh, yeah. Don't fall asleep. John was called John the Beloved. He still is, by the way. In heaven, you don't lose what you accomplish on earth. Which should give you reason to grow and increase in what God has given you. Because it'll be remembered and registered forever up there. Yeah. So John the Beloved won't even take credit for his love for God. And so he pens that verse. I love him. Yeah. Because, this is why, he first loved me. You don't want to depend on your love for Jesus. Because your love is limited. You want to depend on his love for you, which is unlimited and unconditional. Something a friend of ours in Reading asked Jesse and I, two awesome questions. What can you do to get Jesus to love you more? And we sat there. Like, oh my God. I was traveling the world. I thought, gosh, this answer bothers me. I said, nothing. He goes, yep. He goes, another question. What can you do to get him to love you less? I said, nothing. He goes, he just loves you. Oh my God. He just loves me. Now that is not a license to do whatever I want. In fact, walking in the love of Jesus should produce and increase holiness. Those that love me, the Bible says, obey me. Now, let me say this. It doesn't say those that obey me love me. You cannot obey your way into love. You fall in love and obedience becomes the natural byproduct of a life of love. Let me hit you from the other side now. Left hook, right hook. Okay, here we go. Listen. I'm gonna swell up your right eye now. Listen up. All right. If there's an obedience issue, there's a love issue. You're like, oh my gosh. You're getting so excited for a minute. Yes. All right, but let me tell you, there's a way to know that you love the Lord and there's a way to know whether others around you love the Lord. In fact, John the Beloved actually is trying to get the church to look for and determine who is of the Lord in their midst and who is not. There were many criteria that he lists, but clearly, obedience is connected to love. And so, the love of the Holy Spirit is the love of Jesus. He communicates his love to us, as I said two weeks ago, in our hearts. Love will take you much further in your obedience and accomplishment than your own grit. In fact, that only lasts you like a day. Let me read a verse to you that blew my mind years ago. Are you enjoying this? Psalm 18, verse one. This is so powerful. Let me grab a mic here, save my voice. By the way, I wouldn't miss tonight. It is gonna be holy and amazing. Grab a mic here. Let me grab this one. I'm gonna grab this one here, Tinsley. This one cool? All right. Read me Psalm 18, verse one. Ryan. It says, I will love you, O Lord, my strength. Okay, stop there. I will love you, O Lord, my what? Amen. Okay, quick question. How do we fall in love with Jesus? Say, by experiencing his love. And by the way, that is never separated from the cross. The quickest route to experiencing the love of Jesus is to behold the cross. This is the greatest act of love in the history of the universe, and it is the proof of his love. That's why he said, no greater love can a man have than to lay his life down for his friends. You cannot find this love that is not Christian. The cross and love are synonymous. So the Christian can actually look in the eyes of somebody who has honest questions and say, they say, how do you know God loves you? Because he died for me. He became a man for me and is forever God and man. He has not relinquished his humanity. That is an announcement of love. Do you realize that prior to the incarnation, the Trinity, we're talking about the second person of the Godhead becoming a man and still is. Humanity, I should say him being a man, is forever part of the Trinity now. You cannot doubt that he loves you. It's not like Jesus had it rough before he was born in a manger. He was doing just fine. Read the description in Daniel seven, the book of Revelation. Go through the throne room description. It's all nicer than the manger. Okay, it's not like he was trying to find a better place to hang out. So this is love. And ultimately, he would die. So David writes something. David, listen up. David is the greatest warrior the old covenant had known. David took the city that nobody could take, Jerusalem, and God saw it fit to name the city after him, the city of David. David was very special, the Lord, but let's just leave the intimacy part out for a moment. Look at his accomplishments. He created a 24-7 worship tent for an entire generation. I'm not just talking about how many Philistines he killed. By the tens and hundreds of thousands, all the enemies he destroyed, and took the city not even Joshua could take. Side note, worshipers conquer much better than the greatest warriors. You learn to worship, you'll gain ground. So, oh, someone liked that. Good, I hope you like it. Grab it and just keep singing. Keep loving him. It'll take you much further than your sword. I'm not talking about the sword of the word. I mean the arm of the flesh, your own accomplishment. No, no, no. So David says something here. This is a sneak peek into David's arsenal. I love you, Lord. You are my strength. A loving relationship with Jesus is the source of strength to accomplish. One of the things we have to walk our students through is getting them to forget about the 10 doors they're trying to figure out to walk through or not. And to just get them to look and live. I tell them, forget about the doors. And come to the door with a capital D. Just simplify your life. Don't try to figure this out and that out right now. That'll come. But it's never gonna become more complicated as you pursue the Lord. It should become more simple. Just fall in love with Jesus. If you can get that, you get everything. That only happens by the Spirit. And it only happens when we receive his love first. So, this would be my loving challenge to the church. I want you, over the next couple months, and you track what will happen to you. Go through the passages, Old Covenant and New. These I'm not gonna give you. I'll give you two from the Old Covenant. Or three, if I get excited about them. Okay, Isaiah 53, Isaiah 50, you'll get three. Psalm 22, start going through these. Go through the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. Passages that explain the Lord's sacrifice. Very slowly, pray through his suffering. Everything he experienced prior to his death. Begin to behold the sacrifice of the cross. And realize this, that it is actually true. That if you were the only one to ever exist, he would do it for you. It's true. His blood had nothing to do with population size. The same sacrifice would have been required if it were one person on earth, or seven billion. It doesn't matter. Redemption is redemption. The blood was required. You begin to think about the fact, as you behold Isaiah 53, think of the whipping post, his crowning, and realize that was just for you, or it was for you, love will be birthed. It'll be birthed. And you just sit there with your Bible and begin to receive his love. Begin to receive your love. And you begin to talk to him. Oh Lord, thank you for what you did. Thank you. I mean, help me Joel, just a little bit. Think about this for a moment. He, I feel the Lord now. He kept his scars intentionally. Why? Little softer, buddy. Little softer, bring it way down, yeah, yeah. Why? Why? Why would the resurrected Christ keep the scars? Another question. What did Jesus do with his hands when he ascended and blessed the disciples? The Bible says he lifted his hands and blessed them when he went up off the Mount of Olives. Why? Why? There he is, shining most likely in his glory. As I preached months ago, there's a man flying through the air, breaking the heavens. And by the way, that had to happen as part of the gospel message because he had to ascend higher and higher, conquering all principalities on his way up. Yeah, so that the church, the church can actually say, you are the highest one. That's why they would put the Asherah poles and idols to Molech in the high places in Israel. They understood the whole point of height. So Jesus didn't only ascend above the mountains just to dominate them, he ascended to the highest heaven and then above that and wherever that is, he's enthroned there. So he can actually say, according to the scriptures, that his enemies are his footstool. Well, I was right. You should feel a little shudder through your spine. All right. On his way up, he lifted his hands. A beautiful reminder. Yes, I've been glorified, but do not forget I was crucified because those holes say, I love you. Does that make sense? So when you begin to see Jesus in this light, and that only happens by the spirit in the word of God, don't make up your own definition of love. Let the scriptures paint the picture. So you start meditating with Psalm 22. They pierced my hands and my feet. What does it mean? Meditating is not a bad word, by the way. The devil stole it and used it for something bad. Joshua used it. The Bible teaches us to meditate on the scriptures. Can I have five extra minutes? Oh, because I feel the Lord. All right. Pretend it's like eating a meal. All right, the entry stage of prayer and reading your Bible, that's like when the waiter brings the meal, and there it is in front of you. Thanksgiving in praise is like you taking the fork and cutting up the meal. That's the, it's the front door, which, by the way, it's very important. That's why our team starts with Thanksgiving. It's not because they wanna eat a turkey. It's, I would love to have a big turkey right now. I forgot to eat this morning. I'm so hungry. All right. It's because that's how God says to approach him. So we go, yes, Lord. So we choose songs that actually thank him. You have to, because that's what he wants, if you want him in the room. So you start thanking him, and that's you picking up your fork, and you're cutting it. And then based on the Thanksgiving, it begins to birth something in us, praise, because we go, thank you for saving me, and then the lights go on. Oh my gosh, you are the savior. The moment you say that, praise just took place. Praise is about the Lord. Praise has to be to the Lord, by the way. Well, that's like picking up the meal and putting it in your mouth. That's like opening your Bible and reading. That's the reading phase. You put the bite in. Meditating on the word, it's like the chewing. It's where you begin to partner with what God has given you, and you begin to pray what he's given you. And that's like chewing the meal. So there's partnership. Yeah, the meal is beginning to nourish you, but you're chewing. And that's why Jesus said, when you pray, say. You've gotta get involved. The Lord will never pull you out of your bed with his hand. Well, he could, but I've never seen it happen. He's probably gonna do it to one of you. Just, who knows? And throw you in the recliner, pour an espresso down your throat. He's not gonna ring your alarm clock for you. Why? Because this is a romance. So the Lord wants it, too. He wants you to get up, because he's in love, and he wants to see you move in his direction, right? Well, I'm not talking about that, but this chewing phase requires partnership, and that's where the nourishment begins. So you take the word out, and you start going. For instance, Psalm 22, they pierce my hands and my feet. It would sound something like this. Jesus, thank you for offering your hands that created the whole universe. That painted the stars in the sky. That put color on the earth. The same hands that hold my breath. The same hands that healed the sick in Galilee. Those precious, holy, wonderful hands that the Holy Spirit formed inside the virgin. Things like this. And you start going, thank you for receiving spikes through those hands, and bleeding from those hands. Thank you, Jesus. That's what it looks like, to meditate on the word until something glorious is birthed in you. At one point, you will begin to experience his presence, which is his love. He is love. He is his love. My friend, Eric Gilmore and I were in a Phoenix 10, 11 years ago, visiting the Evangelical Sisterhood of Mary, the sisters there. Either Evangelical, charismatic sisters who changed my life. They're nuns who have given everything to Jesus. They're amazing. And they taught me so much about first love and what it looks like. So Eric, he's still kind of like this. He walked up to one of them, pulled them aside. He said, hey, have you ever had glorious encounters with Jesus? Ecstatic encounters of his love? You know, we were young then. We kind of knew what we were talking about, but we didn't. We had encountered the Lord, but we were certainly a little rambunctious at times. Hadn't lived enough life to, we're probably still there in many ways. He said, have you ever had that? And the nun stopped him and said, oh, those are for the faithful. Those moments are for the faithful. Experiencing the love of Jesus in that measure, those are for those who show up and actually come and position themselves to receive his love.