KNOWING GOD FROM THE INSIDE OUT Ephesians 1:15-19; 3:14-19; Colossians 1:9-12   Imagine before we had the Bible, how would we know what God is like. Imagine you lived on the Yucatan Peninsula. Is God good? Loving? Kind? Capricious? It would be hard to tell from circumstances or certainly from nature.   Plant crops and great harvest; gentle rain and sunshine and great harvest. Would say that God is very good.   Hurricane hits, destruction and death; God is not so good.   Loved one sick and you pray and he lives, God is so good.   Loved one sick and dies – God's not so good.   If we're always trying to know what God is like by the circumstances around us, then we'll never know what God is really like.   But we have a Bible. The Bible reveals to us what God is like, and He stays like that no matter what the circumstances.   Purpose of prayer is to know God. Good to pray through Scriptures because we'll get to know the character of God.   Man's basic definition of prayer is to have our needs met. God's basic definition of prayer is that we may know Him.   Too often we allow our view of God to be altered by the circumstances around us.   God always desires our greatest good. In tragic circumstances we often miss God's hand in things and see only the painful moments instead of His overall holiness, love, and perfect plan.   Kathryn Kuhlman told of a young couple who found Christ through tragedy.   A few days before Christmas as Joe and Dora made preparation for the holidays. One morning Joe left for work as a TV repairman. Dora let Steve and Mike, their two boys, out to play on the front driveway. Boys soon return to warm cookies she was baking. Twenty minutes passed and terrified neighbor pounded frantically on the door. “Two boys fell into the pond – I think that they're yours.”   Joe and Dora soon found themselves standing sadly in a funeral home, the boys lying in twin caskets. Following a solemn service, burial was held in freezing wind and rain.   Imagine asking God, “Why?”   Follow Dora home as she tries to forget. Enters kitchen and notices two little gifts Mike and Steve made at school the day they died. She silently reads, “To the best mom and dad in the world.” Dora now serves dinner, but two empty chairs rest beside the dining room table – two constant reminders. Goes to boys' room and find a rumpled pile of little boys' clothes. Pulls out drawers of nearby chest and notices all the things that little boys collect – bottle caps, empty shotgun shells, children's books.   Consider Joe's anxiety. Can't sleep, eat, work begins to fail, eyes constantly bloodshot, body soon covered with huge boils. Reminds us of Job. Imagine his thoughts as a school bus full of children pass. Remembers times Mike and Steve snuggled close to him. Tears flow freely now.   “How can this possibly be the Father's will?”   I have seen moms and dads and others change their whole view of God over less than this.   Yet, God is still the same, love, all-knowing, all-powerful God He was before the boys fell into the water!   Dad watches boy killed in train wreck. Anguished father grieves. “Where was God when my son was killed?” “I suppose where He was when his own Son died.”   They hold art of prayer... of spiritual maturity... is learning to transfer from the temporal to the eternal.   There is a reason behind all that God allows.   Juanita Bennett struggling when Nicholson baby rode tricycle into pool and drowned. Why? Where's guardian angel? Why didn't God have some adult walk out? Why? Asked Al Johnson. He replied, “What is God's ultimate plan for believers?” “To be with Him.” “Where is that little boy?” “Now he's with Jesus.” Ultimate plan already accomplished. That's transition from temporal to eternal.   Recently Steve and I flew to Lake Charles, Louisiana, to interview a prospective Associate Pastor. Had some bad times in some churches but was so highly recommended that he was worth a look. Jack Harris. Recently resigned from second church because of trouble with some church leaders. Carpenter work! Praising God, many churches talking with him... more work than he could handle. Praising God for answering prayer and for His goodness.   He called me this week. “How are things?” “Not so good. $200 in bank, and $1000 in bills. No work! No churches...” “How's your wife?” “She cries a lot. God won't answer her prayers.”   How tragic.   Such a typical response. Soon the anger and the bitterness sets in against God.   How many bitter people do you and I know who hate God or who have rejected Christianity because God hasn't made everything just right from their perspective?   Yet, God is just right whether we like our circumstances or not.   Show you difference between our humanity and God's sovereign deity. Turn to 2 Corinthians 4.   My humanity says, “God heal my body... God fix these circumstances... God turn around this tragedy...” But God says, READ 1 CORINTHIANS 4:16-18.   There is a basic Biblical presupposition with which you and I must come to grips. God is all powerful. God is sovereign. Nothing occurs that He does not allow in our best eternal interest and for our best eternal good.   Most of us have trouble comprehending and complying when the Bible says, “Give thanks for all things” or “Rejoice in all things.”   *1 Thessalonians 5:18 - “Give thanks in all circumstances...”   *Ephesians 5:20 - “Always giving thanks to God the Father for everything.”   When tragedy occurs we are to praise and thank God for it. It's hard. But when we finally praise and thank God for it we overcome a tremendous psychological and spiritual hurdle.   When we praise and thank Him for it we acknowledge His control and that He's working it out for the best.   To fail to give praise or thanksgiving is to subconsciously or consciously say that here is an area which is out of God's control... and it will not be long until the bitterness and anger begin to set in.   Effective praying... and effective living deals with the eternal aspects of life. Then comes our temporal needs.   READ ROMANS 8:28-29   We will never sustain our eternal prayer life unless we determine to develop an eternal perspective. We must never allow temporal discomforts to destroy our view of God.   The art of prayer is learning to transition from the temporal to the eternal.   That's what Psalm 27 is all about!   READ PSALM 27:1-8, 13-14.   Transitioning from the temporal to the eternal is accomplished by learning to pray from the inside out.   READ 1 THESSALONIANS 5:23   Notice order of priority – spirit, soul, body.   Spirit – inner man; “pneuma”; God-consciousness; area where I am able to see and experience God. Holy Spirit deals with me and contacts me at the point of my spirit – eternal.   Soul - “psyche” or “nous” - mind, emotions, will, conscience, thinking interface between my spirit and soul at the point of my conscience.   Body - “some”, “sarx” - give senses, natural biological desires. Temporal.   God is much more concerned that we're praying for our spirit which is eternal than for our body which is decaying and which will soon perish.   Read Prayer for Inner Man. Ephesians 1:15-19; 3:14-19; Colossians 1:9-12.   God allows and creates circumstances so that we may know Him better. He wants to sensitize our God-consciousness.   Satan wants to get our minds on ours bodies and circumstances in order to desensitize our God-consciousness.   When we pray in the area of our spirit, God answers a thousand out of a thousand times. “God make me like Christ... make me a man of God... give me your wisdom and discernment, etc.”   When we pray in the area of our soul, God is often hindered from answering our prayer. Problem here is my will. “God help me not to lust after women.” You know God wants that... but our will is involved and we see a pretty girl and think wrong thoughts. Harder to have answer here. God is hindered in giving what I ask for because my will is so involved. When my will is in line with His will, God can easily answer my prayer.   The body is the place where God has the most difficulty in answering my prayer. Reason is because my body is so temporal. We pray, “God, heal my body... make me well... change these circumstances...” We're totally obsessed with removing pain and tragedies and problems; and God is totally obsessed with making us God-sensitized in our spirit because this is eternal. It is a great day in our growth to maturity when we understand that God often allows sickness and calamity and tragedy in our body and circumstances in order to make us God-sensitized. The body is decaying and temporal and created. God will even destroy the body in order to save the eternal. READ 1 CORINTHIANS 5:1-5 - “...allow flesh to be destroyed and his spirit saved.”   Here is an eternal Christian presumption: God is more interested in the eternal than the temporal. He reveals that all through His Word. He will sacrifice the temporal (body, situation, etc.) every time in order to develop and mature and save the eternal.   So we pray from the inside out. We pray for the development of that which is deep within us and interpret and pray for our bodies and circumstances in the light of how it affects our inner man.   Praying ineffectively for the temporal, be it body or circumstances will greatly damage our view of God.   Viewing physical illness and circumstances with man's interests in mind will hinder our understanding of God's purpose.   And it's so easy for us to do that. After a great confession, Peter is commended by Jesus. Then Christ says, “I must suffer and die,” and Peter is horrified. “No, you won't die!” was to Peter's best interest, he thought, for Christ not to die. “Get behind me, Satan!” Peter was trying to put Christ's eyes on man's interests, not on God's.   Praying from the inside out allows us to see things from God's perspective.   Illustrated with praying for person with cancer. Pray and pray and pray for healing. Can be healed of cancer seven times, and they'll eventually die. It is not eternally effective. Life is a terminal disease.   People get all hyped up over some healing. We're all in a tizzy. But angels rejoice when bodies are healed? No. When soul is saved! That is the eternal thing.   We are to seek God and His desires first and then ask for whatever our heart desires. Our desires will be His desires.   Yet most people ask and beg and want things and situations changed and bodies healed and don't have the slightest idea what God wants to do.   When my will is in line with His will God can easily answer. When my will is not in line with His will there is conflict. Guess who usually wins!   But not always. If you pray without being enlightened, without knowing His will, God will sometimes give you what you want with devastating results.   READ PSALM 106:14-15. Wanted quail. Tired of manna. God sent quail; got sick and died.   Story of woman with sick baby. Pray for my baby to be healed... lived to watch son mount stairs of village gallows to be hanged for murdering family of six next door.   Deal for just a moment with praying for the sick.   Three basic broad purposes for sickness.   *Unto death – John 11:4 – Some sicknesses are for the purpose of death.   *Unto chastisement – punishment for sin.   Jesus heals man at pool (John 5) and says, “Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.”   1 Corinthians 11 – Eating Lord's Supper in unworthy manner. “Don't you know that's why many are sick and some have died?   Relates to sin – common cold relates to sin n Garden, reminds us of our sins before God. Puts our need for a Savior in proper perspective.   *Unto glory of God.   John 4:11 – Lazarus' sickness for glory of God. John 9:3 – Man born blind, for glory of God. Luke 18 – Man at pool sick for glory of God.   Seek God's face – Is this a sickness unto death?   Is it for chastisement?   If so, confess sin and God promises to heal. Confess with Psalm 139:23-24; Psalm 51; 1 John 1:9 – Instructions given in James 5:13-16. Deals with context of sickness caused by sin. Confess, elders, ask God to heal, pray in faith. God will heal. If no healing, sins not confessed and repented of, or maybe it's for the glory of God.   it for God's glory?   READ 1 CORINTHIANS 4:15-18   Paul's thorn.   Stop asking for healing and seek God's power and glory through the sickness.   Proper responses to adversity.   *Give thanks for all things. Praise God for all things. Remember that God uses all things to develop our inner man, the eternal. What could be better than that? Remember that praise transforms.   *Don't immediately attempt to remove the adversity. Allow it to reveal our true weakness. READ 2 CORINTHIANS 12:7-10, and see Paul and his thorn.   *Realize that we are dealing with unseen spiritual powers. We need to avoid focusing our attention on the outward physical circumstances and look at the spiritual issues involved. Ephesians 6:12.   *Seek God and have His heart and mind; then we have the power source to determine what's going on from God's eternal perspective – James 1:5 - “If any of you lacks wisdom” (about trials).   *Realize that Jesus Christ must live in us through the power of the Holy Spirit. Galatians 2:20 - “I am crucified with Christ.”   *Find out what God's doing and pray for Him to accomplish it. Does God intend to heal here? Does He want to straighten out this tragedy now? Later? Perhaps never? Why?   The holy art of prayer, or of Christian living, is to transition from the temporal to the eternal.   It's accomplished by praying from the inside out. Let's do that.   Pray theol

THE END OF THE MATTER Ecclesiastes 12:13-14 This morning, as we come to the end of the book of Ecclesiastes, I am going to talk about fear—and love. “Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil.” (Ecclesiastes 12:13-14) Solomon recommends two things that mix together rather well. Fear God Keep His Commandments The “Fear of the Lord” is really important: It is the beginning of wisdom (Proverb 9:10). The Greatest Commandment is really important. “Love God and Love your neighbor” (Matthew 22). The term, “Fear of the Lord,” means more than, “scare the pants off of someone,” or be “filled with great dread,” –although it does encompass that. The “Fear of the Lord” is more a descriptive phrase which identifies a particular type of lifestyle. When you think about it, “Fear of the Lord” leads us away from sin and the things that might hurt us and directs us toward holiness. The “Fear of the Lord” manifests itself in provision and protection. When you fear God you won’t ever need to fear anything else. The “Fear of the Lord” is the beginning of wisdom,” but it is certainly not the end! “Perfect love casts out fear .” We must be keep a proper balance of love and fear. We all respond better to love than to fear. The cross of Christ shows the mixture of love and fear.

Reading the Bible can be a daunting task. Practically speaking, when we open our Bible, we can feel like we’ve been dropped in an unfamiliar forest in the middle of the night without directions. As a result, we can just stop reading our Bible all together or just read it on occasion. We don’t want to stop reading, but without help we just do what we can. What we need is a synthetic understanding of the Bible. In other words, we need to know more than mere stories of the Bible in isolation (Abraham had many sons, Noah built an ark, Jonah was swallowed by a fish, David killed Goliath, etc.). What we need is to see how all the stories fit together, and more importantly how these stories advance a bigger story of God’s redemption for humanity along in history. A story of God’s mission. It’s helpful then to have a grasp of God’s mission. What is God’s mission? God’s mission is to redeem and reconcile a rebellious mankind by creating a new humanity based on God’s free grace, love through the person and work of Jesus Christ, and regenerating power and indwelling of the Holy Spirit. As we understand this mission, and how it fits the entire 66 books of the Bible together, then we can see how each book fits together and moves God’s mission of redemption along. Having said that, and in keeping the mission of God in mind, below are five basic questions that serve as a guide to thoughtful, discerning, heart changing, and enjoyable Bible reading, learning, and application to everyday life: (1) “Where” does this letter/book fit in the biblical storyline? Proximity is the heart of this question. When we pick up our Bibles and we turn to a book in the Bible, we often don’t know where it fits in the broader story of redemption. Perhaps even, we think it was written in isolation. In one sense it was written as a stand-alone letter. In a larger sense it was not. Isaiah certainly had a specific message for his audience, but Isaiah advances God’s redemptive message along in history. When we understand where it fits then we can ask the right questions and avoid the wrong ones. For example, Exodus does not offer insight into the temple of God. On the other hand, it does provide insight into God’s initiative to restore fellowship with a sinful humanity by providing specific details for the tabernacle that will serve as a type and an example of God providing a way to deal with sin. (2) “What” is the message of the letter/book? Context is the heart of this question. Is this poetry, history, an epistle, etc.? Knowing the genre or style of writing will help in understanding the message of the book or letter. When you understand the genre, then you can better understand the message. The first step in understanding the message is to read and then re-read and re-read. Shoot for 3-5 readings all the way through. What happens is that themes begin to bubble up. Make note of the words repeated or shifts in subject matter. For instance, when we read the poetic books (Job, Psalms, etc.) we feel something different than when we read history (Joshua, Judges, etc.). Once we get the feel of the letter, then we can begin to see the message of the letter or book. We see the themes and the main points. At this point, you are reading to understand “what.” It’s a gathering of information and putting it in familiar categories. Is the author dealing with judgment, blessing, warning, encouragement, or all the above? (3) “Why” was the book/letter written? Connections is the heart of this question. This is where we answer “Why.” Why was the letter or book written? Why did he say what he said? It’s important to point out that this is one of the more challenging of these 5 hermeneutic questions, but it gets to the heart and purpose of why the letter or book was written. The most natural thing in working through this aspect is to revert to the “what” of the letter. For instance, when Paul wrote in Galatians 1:1, “Paul, an apostle (not sent from men nor through the agency of man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised Him from the dead),” Why did he say this? Why did he say that he is an apostle? Why would him being an apostle impact the rest of what he wrote to the churches of Galatia? We don’t merely say that he said that he was an apostle, but why did he say it? As this question gets answered throughout the letter, the connections are made within the letter. In other words, it keeps you from segmenting select passages within the book and making them say something they shouldn’t say, and instead constraining the verses to the connections within the context of the letter. For instance, back to Galatians. When Paul refers to flesh in Galatians 5:13, 15, 17, 19, why does he say in the same context as the deeds of the flesh (immorality, impurity, etc.)? Is he referring to lustful things or is he keeping the same connection of flesh to the law as in Galatians 3:3? (4) “How” does it apply to the “original audience?” Original intent is the heart of this question. When we move into applying the book to everyday life, our first step is not to make application for our life. Instead, we must start with the author’s intent to make application for the original audience. For instance, when Paul confronts Peter in Galatians 2:14, he is dealing with a contextual issue in a certain contextual way. This is not a license to go publicly rebuking fellow Christians. Another example is the Sermon on the Mount. When Christ says in Matthew 6:33, “But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” The first application isn’t to modern readers, but to the original audience. Christ’s audience was His disciples, and He was about to send them on a mission of sharing the good news of the kingdom of God. They needed to know that as they go out and share the news that God would supply all their needs. That’s the first application to the original audience. Once we get that down, then we can move on to our life, which would be really in principle in a lot of cases. Thus, this fourth question forces us to slow down and see the application for the original audience before we start looking for applications for our own lives. (5) “How” does it apply to “me” today? Personal application is at the heart of this question. This is the part where we move into personal application for the modern reader. What I don’t mean by the previous sentence is that this application is historically contextual to our day and then changes 1,000 years later to another day. What I mean is that there are principles of application for the original audience that would apply universally to Christians today and into the future. Take the two examples above, for instance. In the case of Paul’s public rebuke of Peter, we would principally make an application that standing for the gospel might mean that I confront a brother who is in open and public sin. My confrontation would be appropriate to the magnitude of the public sin and would be appropriate to the audience. In the case of Christ’s promise to His disciples, we would draw a universal application based upon the principle that God will meet the physical needs of any of His followers as they carry His gospel message to the world. In other words, it’s not a blanket promise that God will always meet my physical needs in the way I want or think He should. It’s more than my understanding of my happiness, but instead about my willingness to be a vessel He carries and cares for as I advance His message to others. In conclusion, as we gain a biblical vision on God’s Word and as we learn how to study God’s Word, we will find that our understanding of Proverbs 29:18 gets deeper and richer. Bible Study Library Suggestions There are many choices as it pertains to building a physical Bible Study library. Let me simplify by providing some recommendations below: Bible Atlas The Moody Atlas of Bible Lands Bible Dictionary New Unger’s Bible Revised & Expanded Dictionary Bible Handbook New Unger’s Bible Handbook Commentary Free and digital: www.soniclight.org Technical: www.bestcommentaries.com General: *Bible Knowledge Commentary (Old & New Testament) Devotional: *Matthew Henry (Complete) Concordance New American Standard Exhaustive Concordance, NASB, New Strong’s Exhaustive Study Bible Zondervan NASB Wide Margin Bible Other Resources Nave’s Topical Bible; Baker Encyclopedia of the Bible, Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties

Q: Does God permit or condone revenge? “Then Samson called to the LORD and said, "O Lord GOD, please remember me and please strengthen me only this once, O God, that I may be avenged on the Philistines for my two eyes." Judges 16:28. I. Definitions. There are several words we use to describe revenge: Vengeance, Avenger, Repay, Retaliation. The basic concept is to pay back someone for a wrong or evil that was done to another party. A. Some people believe that vengeance is always wrong. However, the Bible actually teaches that there is a proper time for vengeance. Not all vengeance in the Bible is wrong. II. Man’s View of Revenge. A. In what ways do people sometimes take revenge on others? 1. To get back at the person who hurts us. B. Examples of biblical figures taking revenge. 1. Samson constantly took revenge when he was wronged. 2. Solomon took revenge on Joab and Shimei (I Kings 2:5-6,8-9) 3. In Judges 19 & 20, 11 tribes took vengeance on Benjamin for shielding rapists in their tribe who committed a vile act. C. Unforgiveness is the root of personal revenge. III. God’s View of Revenge. A. Does God take revenge on people? B. Forbidden to Christians. 1. Leviticus 19:18.  Revenge and love tied together. “You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.” 2. “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, do not resist the one who is evil” (Matthew 5:38). C. God sometimes takes revenge. Examples of God taking revenge: a. Taking vengeance on Israel for violating the covenant. Leviticus 26:25. “I will bring a sword upon you, that shall execute vengeance for the covenant.” b. Taking vengeance for Israel against Babylon. Jeremiah 51:36-37. “I will plead your cause and take vengeance for you. I will dry up her sea make her fountain dry, and Babylon shall become a heap of ruins.” 2. Why God takes vengeance. Nahum 1:2. “The Lord is a jealous and avenging God; the Lord is avenging and wrathful; the Lord takes vengeance on his adversaries and keeps wrath for his enemies.” a. Notice that right after this he says, “The Lord is slow to anger” (Nahum 1:3). God does not quickly rush to judgment. 3. What is the difference between revenge and justice? a. For the protection of society, justice seeks to remove evil and the harm it causes. b. Revenge seeks to retaliate in a harmful way against others, including up to killing. D. Someday God will have a final day of reconning when he will punish all evildoers for eternity. Those people will experience God’s eternal wrath and he will have his vengeance and will take vengeance for his people (Revelation 6:10). IV. Government’s View of Revenge. A. Payback for evil against its citizens. 1. “For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer” (Romans 13:4). B. God’s requirements for vengeance by a government. 1. Amalekites as an example of God’s vengeance against Israel’s enemies. “I have noted what Amalek did to Israel in opposing them on the way when they came up out of Egypt. Now go and strike Amalek and devote to destruction all that they have” (I Samuel 15:2-3). C. God established in Israel something called the “Avenger of Blood.” 1. Context and description (Numbers 35:18-29). 2. Numbers 35:18-19. “The murderer shall be put to death. The avenger of blood shall himself put the murderer to death; when he meets him, he shall put him to death.” 3. The Avenger of Blood was part of Israel’s criminal justice system. It was not meant as a way of exacting personal revenge. V. When Is Revenge is Acceptable or Unacceptable? A. By governments when wrongly attacked. B. By God, when judging evil (personal or political) C. There is no situation in scripture where God condones personal revenge by another person. 1. Some believe that the biblical phrase, “Eye for an eye” permitted revenge. However, the passage it is taken from, Exodus 21:23-25 is part of a larger passage describing the administration of criminal justice. 2. Eye for an eye was a principle of criminal justice, not personal behavior. Jesus condemned personal revenge in Matthew 5:38-39. D. God prefers forgiveness over revenge. 1. People who did not take revenge: a. David did not take revenge against Saul or his offspring. b. Joseph did not take revenge against his brothers. VI. Application. A. Wrestling with forgiveness 1. The root of revenge is unforgiveness. Jesus wants us to do away with revenge by granting forgiveness. “Forgive your brother from your heart” (Matthew 18:25). B. Taking the attitude of Jesus on ourselves C. Let God handle vengeance D. Three application points from Roger Barrier of PreachItTeachIt.org on revenge: 1. Since man is depraved, expect to be mistreated. 2. Since mistreatment is inevitable, anticipate feelings of revenge. 3. Since we all deal with feelings of revenge, handle mistreatment God’s way. a. We are responsible for sharing Christ with our enemy, whoever that might be. b. If possible, be at peace with everyone (but sometimes it’s not possible). c. Don’t spend life trying to get even. Repay evil with good.

“He leads me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake.”  Psalm 23:3 NKJV A friend organized a Christmas cookie swap for our church office staff. The plan was simple. Price of admission was a tray of cookies. Your tray entitled you to pick cookies from the other trays. You could leave with as many cookies as you brought. The Burden of Guilt Sounds simple, if you know how to cook.  But what if you can’t? What if you can’t tell a pan from a pot? What if, like me, you are culinarily challenged? What if you’re as comfortable in an apron as a bodybuilder in a tutu? If such is the case, you’ve got a problem. Such was the case, and I had a problem. I had no cookies to bring; hence I would have no place at the party. I would be left out, turned away, shunned, eschewed, and dismissed. (Are you feeling sorry for me yet?) This was my plight. And, forgive me for bringing it up, but your plight’s even worse. God is planning a party … a party to end all parties. Not a cookie party, but a feast. Not giggles and chitchat in the conference room, but wide-eyed wonder in the throne room of God. Yes, the guest list is impressive. Your question to Jonah about undergoing a gut check in a fish gut? You’ll be able to ask him. But more impressive than the names of the guests is the nature of the guests. No egos, no power plays. Guilt, shame, and sorrow will be checked at the gate. Disease, death, and depression will be the Black Plagues of a distant past. What we now see daily, there we will never see. And what we now see vaguely, there we will see clearly. We will see God. Not by faith. Not through the eyes of Moses or Abraham or David. Not via Scripture or sunsets or summer rains. We will see not God’s work or words, but we will see him! For he is not the host of the party; he is the party. His goodness is the banquet. His voice is the music. His radiance is the light, and his love is the endless topic of discussion. There is only one hitch. The price of admission is somewhat steep. In order to come to the party, you need to be righteous. Not good. Not decent. Not a taxpayer or churchgoer. Citizens of heaven are righteous. R-i-g-h-t. All of us occasionally do what is right. A few predominantly do what is right. But do any of us always do what is right? According to Paul we don’t. “There is none righteous, no, not one” (Rom. 3:10 NKJV). Paul is adamant about this. He goes on to say, “No one anywhere has kept on doing what is right; not one” (Rom. 3:12 TLB). Some may beg to differ. “I’m not perfect, Max, but I’m better than most folks. I’ve led a good life. I don’t break the rules. I don’t break hearts. I help people. I like people. Compared to others, I think I could say I’m a righteous person.” I used to try that one on my mother. She’d tell me my room wasn’t clean, and I’d ask her to go with me to my brother’s room. His was always messier than mine. “See, my room is clean; just look at his.” Never worked. She’d walk me down the hall to her room. When it came to tidy rooms, my mom was righteous. Her closet was just right. Her bed was just right. Her bathroom was just right. Compared to hers, my room was, well, just wrong. She would show me her room and say, “This is what I mean by clean.” God does the same. He points to himself and says, “This is what I mean by righteousness.” Righteousness is who God is. “Our God and Savior Jesus Christ does what is right” (2 Pet. 1:1). “God is a righteous judge” (Ps. 7:11 NIV). “The LORD is righteous, he loves justice” (Ps. 11:7 NIV). God’s righteousness “endures forever” (Ps. 112:3 NIV) and “reaches to the skies” (Ps. 71:19 NIV). Isaiah described God as “a righteous God and a Savior” (Isa. 45:21 NIV). On the eve of his death, Jesus began his prayer with the words “Righteous Father” (John 17:25 NIV). Get the point? God is righteous. His decrees are righteous (Rom. 1:32). His judgment is righteous (Rom. 2:5). His requirements are righteous (Rom. 8:4). His acts are righteous (Dan. 9:16). Daniel declared, “Our God is right in everything he does” (Dan. 9:14). God is never wrong. He has never rendered a wrong decision, experienced the wrong attitude, taken the wrong path, said the wrong thing, or acted the wrong way. He is never too late or too early, too loud or too soft, too fast or too slow. He has always been and always will be right. He is righteous. When it comes to righteousness, God runs the table without so much as a bank shot. And when it comes to righteousness, we don’t know which end of the cue stick to hold. Hence, our plight. Will God, who is righteous, spend eternity with those who are not? Would Harvard admit a third-grade dropout? If it did, the act might be benevolent, but it wouldn’t be right. If God accepted the unrighteous, the invitation would be even nicer, but would he be right? Would he be right to overlook our sins? Lower his standards? No. He wouldn’t be right. And if God is anything, he is right. He told Isaiah that righteousness would be his plumb line, the standard by which his house is measured (Isa. 28:17). If we are unrighteous, then, we are left in the hallway with no cookies. Or to use Paul’s analogy, “we’re sinners, every one of us, in the same sinking boat with everybody else” (Rom. 3:19 MSG). Then what are we to do? Carry a load of guilt? Many do. So many do. What if our spiritual baggage were visible? Suppose the luggage in our hearts was literal luggage on the street. You know what you’d see most of all? Suitcases of guilt. Bags bulging with binges, blowups, and compromises. Look around you. The fellow in the gray-flannel suit? He’s dragging a decade of regrets. The kid with the baggy jeans and nose ring? He’d give anything to retract the words he said to his mother. But he can’t. So he tows them along. The woman in the business suit? Looks as if she could run for senator? She’d rather run for help, but she can’t run at all. Not hauling that carpetbag of sin everywhere she goes. Listen. The weight of weariness pulls you down. Self-reliance misleads you. Disappointments discourage you. Anxiety plagues you. But guilt? Guilt consumes you. So what do we do? Our Lord is right, and we are wrong. His party is for the guiltless, and we are anything but. What do we do? I can tell you what I did. I confessed my need. Remember my cookie dilemma? This is the e-mail I sent to the whole staff. “I can’t cook, so I can’t be at the party.” Did any of the assistants have mercy on me? No. Did any of the staff have mercy on me? No. Did any of the Supreme Court justices have mercy upon me? No. But a saintly sister in the church did have mercy on me. How she heard of my problem, I do not know. Perhaps my name found its way on an emergency prayer list. But I do know this. Only moments before the celebration, I was given a gift, a plate of cookies, twelve circles of kindness. And by virtue of that gift, I was privileged a place at the party. Did I go? You bet your cookies I did. Like a prince carrying a crown on a pillow, I carried my gift into the room, set it on the table, and stood tall. And because some good soul heard my plea, I was given a place at the table. And because God hears your plea, you’ll be given the same. Only, he did more—oh, so much more—than bake cookies for you. It was, at once, history’s most beautiful and most horrible moment. Jesus stood in the tribunal of heaven. Sweeping a hand over all creation, he pleaded, “Punish me for their mistakes. See the murderer? Give me his penalty. The adulteress? I’ll take her shame. The bigot, the liar, the thief? Do to me what you would do to them. Treat me as you would a sinner.” And God did. “For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God” (1 Pet. 3:18 NIV). Yes, righteousness is what God is, and, yes, righteousness is what we are not, and, yes, righteousness is what God requires. But “God has a way to make people right with him” (Rom. 3:21). David said it like this: “He leads me in the paths of righteousness” (Ps. 23:3 NKJV). The path of righteousness is a narrow, winding trail up a steep hill. At the top of the hill is a cross. At the base of the cross are bags. Countless bags full of innumerable sins. Calvary is the compost pile for guilt. Would you like to leave yours there as well? One final thought about the Christmas cookie party. Did everyone know I didn’t cook the cookies? If they didn’t, I told them. I told them I was present by virtue of someone else’s work. My only contribution was my own confession. We’ll be saying the same for eternity. Excerpted from  Traveling Light © Max Lucado

Message 1: Encountering God's Person SUGGESTED PASSAGE: EXODUS 3:1-14 Now Moses was pasturing the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian; and he led the flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. The angel of the LORD appeared to him in a blazing fire from the midst of a bush; and he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, yet the bush was not consumed. So Moses said, “I must turn aside now and see this marvelous sight, why the bush is not burned up.” When the LORD saw that he turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush and said, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.” Then He said, “Do not come near here; remove your sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” He said also, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” Then Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God. The LORD said, “I have surely seen the affliction of My people who are in Egypt, and have given heed to their cry because of their taskmasters, for I am aware of their sufferings. So I have come down to deliver them from the power of the Egyptians, and to bring them up from that land to a good and spacious land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanite and the Hittite and the Amorite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusite. Now, behold, the cry of the sons of Israel has come to Me; furthermore, I have seen the oppression with which the Egyptians are oppressing them. Therefore, come now, and I will send you to Pharaoh, so that you may bring My people, the sons of Israel, out of Egypt.” But Moses said to God, “Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring the sons of Israel out of Egypt?” And He said, “Certainly I will be with you, and this shall be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God at this mountain.” Then Moses said to God, “Behold, I am going to the sons of Israel, and I will say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you.’ Now they may say to me, ‘What is His name?’ What shall I say to them?” God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM”; and He said, “Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” MESSAGE GOAL: The goal of this message is that you and your church, individually and collectively, will experience a life-transforming divine encounter as we meet God at our burning bush. INTRODUCTION: Far too many Christians have a relationship with God that is more like a flicker of a candle than the brilliance of the noonday sun. What we need is a fresh encounter, an experience with the Most High God. One of the most famous encounters in Scripture is when Moses meets God at the burning bush. Moses is eighty years old at this time. He has spent forty years in the court of Egypt as the adopted son of Pharaoh and forty years in the wilderness as a lowly shepherd after killing an Egyptian slave master in a misguided attempt to liberate his people, the Israelites. So, when we find Moses in Exodus 3, there is a forty-year gap between his misstep and his encounter with God. He has gone from the spotlight in Egypt to following sheep in a remote desert, a lowly profession in the biblical world. Life certainly had not worked out the way Moses must have thought it would. Are you here today feeling like you are just leading sheep? That is, life is not working out like you had hoped it would. Something happened years ago, and now you are wondering around behind sheep. If you could go back and change whatever happened to put you there, you would do it. But you can’t, so you’re just leading sheep, doing the best you can with what you’ve got. I have some good news for you today, particularly if you’re in a wilderness with sheep. Even though it had been forty years, God had not forgotten Moses. And He has not forgotten you, even though it may seem like it as you perform your routine day-to-day tasks and watch the clock and the calendar go by. But the good news is that there is still hope for a fresh encounter with God. SERMON POINTS: 1. IF YOU WANT TO HAVE A DIVINE ENCOUNTER WITHGOD, YOU NEED TO HANG OUT WHERE HE IS. • A lot of people who say they want an experience with God don’t want to hang out with where He is located. • If you want to pursue God’s Person, you must be willing to go into God’s presence. • As long as we insist on a long-distance relationship with God, that is precisely what we will have, but it will be absent a true encounter with Him. 2. ONE WAY YOU KNOW YOU’RE ABOUT TO HAVE A DIVINE ENCOUNTER IS WHEN GOD PRESENTS YOU WITH A CONTRADICTORY SITUATION. • Throughout the Bible, we see contradictions occurring when God shows up—things that are not operating according to their normal flow. • Many of us have missed an encounter with God because we ignored His contradiction. • If you are seeking God and something happens that doesn’t make sense, don’t ignore it—turn aside and investigate it further. • The Bible says that when you respond to what God has done, He will give you more (Matthew 13:12). • It’s easy to talk about wanting a fresh encounter with God, but He wants to see us turn aside and seek Him, not just talk about it. • If you will call out to God in the midst of your contradiction, He will answer because He responds to His name being called. 3. YOU CANNOT HAVE A DIVINE ENCOUNTER WITH GOD IF YOU ARE NOT WILLING TO DEAL WITH SIN. • When you come into God’s presence, you are standing on holy ground. • Moses’ shoes represented the collective dirt of sin that has to be put aside before you can go any further in an encounter with a holy God. • Some people will never burn for God because they are wearing “evangelical asbestos suits.” • People like this don’t want to get too close to God’s holy fire lest His spark catch them on fire. • We have to deal with sin because many of us are too “Egyptianized.” We have too much of the world in us. • God doesn’t want to tell us His plan for lifting us to a new level in our Christian lives until we have had an encounter with Him and dealt with the sin that is holding us back. 4. IF YOU WANT A DIVINE ENCOUNTER WITH GOD, YOU MUST COME TO HIM ON HIS TERMS. • God is the personal, self-revealing God whose name is “I AM WHO I AM,” who sits outside of time in eternity. • This means that no matter how long you have been leading sheep, I AM can deal with your situation and restore the years that have been lost if you will depend completely on Him. • This is why there is no room in the Christian life for the pride that says, “I can do this myself.” • Having an authentic encounter with God doesn’t mean your problems are over; you’ll still have to face your Pharaoh. • But when you face your Pharaoh, I AM is going to be your power, your deliverer, your sustainer and your victory, because “greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world” (1 John 4:4). SERMON ILLUSTRATIONS: REMOVING SHOES FOR WORSHIP Perhaps you have seen pictures of the long lines of shoes outside of a Muslim mosque. A person has to take his shoes off before he can enter the mosque because it is considered a holy place and the people coming in have been walking all over town collecting dirt on their shoes. But they are not allowed to bring that dirt into their place of worship. How much more should we who worship Yahweh treat His presence as holy. BACKGROUND BIBLICAL HISTORY AND CULTURE: Exodus 3:1 says that Moses brought his flock “to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God.” “Horeb” is another name for Mount Sinai, the place where Moses would later be given the Ten Commandments. Horeb is the place where God’s presence was manifested in a miraculous way and terrifying way (Hebrews 12:18-21). QUOTES BY DR. TONY EVANS: “A rhema word is an utterance with your name on it. The question is, do you hear it as being for you? Do you hear God calling your name in the wilderness that has been an extended place for you? When God grabs your undivided attention, you’ll experience what we call in theology, God’s shekinah glory when He manifests Himself.” “People put on asbestos suits so they don’t catch fire. Some of us will never burn for God because we really don’t want to get that close to the fire. We’re satisfied with services, seminars, programs and preaching, but we don’t want to catch fire. So, we put on our asbestos suits and our asbestos dresses, and we come to church with our shoes on, and we wonder why we are not encountering God.”

Message 2: Encountering the Power of God SUGGESTED PASSAGE: Exodus 14:1-18 Now the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Tell the sons of Israel to turn back and camp before Pi-hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea; you shall camp in front of Baal-zephon, opposite it, by the sea. For Pharaoh will say of the sons of Israel, ‘They are wandering aimlessly in the land; the wilderness has shut them in.’ Thus I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and he will chase after them; and I will be honored through Pharaoh and all his army, and the Egyptians will know that I am the Lord.” And they did so. When the king of Egypt was told that the people had fled, Pharaoh and his servants had a change of heart toward the people, and they said, “What is this we have done, that we have let Israel go from serving us?” So he made his chariot ready and took his people with him; and he took six hundred select chariots, and all the other chariots of Egypt with officers over all of them. The Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and he chased after the sons of Israel as the sons of Israel were going out boldly. Then the Egyptians chased after them with all the horses and chariots of Pharaoh, his horsemen and his army, and they overtook them camping by the sea, beside Pi-hahiroth, in front of Baal-zephon. As Pharaoh drew near, the sons of Israel looked, and behold, the Egyptians were marching after them, and they became very frightened; so the sons of Israel cried out to the Lord. Then they said to Moses, “Is it because there were no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? Why have you dealt with us in this way, bringing us out of Egypt? Is this not the word that we spoke to you in Egypt, saying, ‘Leave us alone that we may serve the Egyptians’? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness.” But Moses said to the people, “Do not fear! Stand by and see the salvation of the Lord which He will accomplish for you today; for the Egyptians whom you have seen today, you will never see them again forever. The Lord will fight for you while you keep silent.” Then the Lord said to Moses, “Why are you crying out to Me? Tell the sons of Israel to go forward. As for you, lift up your staff and stretch out your hand over the sea and divide it, and the sons of Israel shall go through the midst of the sea on dry land. As for Me, behold, I will harden the hearts of the Egyptians so that they will go in after them; and I will be honored through Pharaoh and all his army, through his chariots and his horsemen. Then the Egyptians will know that I am the Lord, when I am honored through Pharaoh, through his chariots and his horsemen.” MESSAGE GOAL: The goal of this message on Encountering the Power of God is to show that God wants to encounter you, not merely by the information you may learn about Him, but by personal experience in your daily Christian life. INTRODUCTION: After church one day, a mother asked her son, “What did you learn about in Sunday school today?” The little boy said, “We learned about Israel crossing the Red Sea.” His mother asked, “What did the teacher say about Israel crossing the Red Sea?” The boy replied, “Well, it was like this. Israel built a bridge over the Red Sea. They got in buses and crossed over the bridge. Then when the Egyptians came after them, God sent some F-16 fighter jets and dropped bombs on them until they were all destroyed.” His mother looked skeptical. “Come on, now! Your teacher couldn’t have explained Israel crossing the Red Sea like that,” to which her son replied, “No, but if I told you how it really happened, you’d never believe me!” Probably the most notable story and most celebrated miracle in Israel’s history was the crossing of the Red Sea. But what I want you to see today is that Israel had this incredible divine encounter with God in the context of the greatest dilemma in their history—being trapped between the Red Sea and Pharaoh’s army that had come to slaughter them. We’re talking about divine encounters in this brief series—how to encounter God by experience, not merely by information. You can go to church for years and never have an encounter, that is, a real, life-changing experience, with the living and true God. Yet, God wants to have an encounter with you and me, both individually and collectively as His people. SERMON POINTS: 1. WHEN YOU RUN INTO A REAL DILEMMA, GOD COULD BE POSITIONING YOU FOR A LIFE-CHANGING ENCOUNTER WITH HIM. • Your dilemma may appear at first to be a no-win situation. No matter what direction you look in, you’re trapped. Your back is against the wall. • A dilemma does not mean you are out of God’s will. He led the Israelites the long way out of Egypt (Exodus 13:17-18), deliberately putting them between the Red Sea and Pharaoh’s army. • When God leads you in what seems to be the long way in His will, His presence is going before you (Exodus 13:21). • The Bible says the story of Israel’s deliverance at the Red Sea is designed to give you hope for your Red Sea experience (Romans 15:4; 1 Corinthians 10:1-6). 2. BUT BEFORE YOUR “RED SEA” DILEMMA GETS BETTER, IT MAY ACTUALLY GET WORSE. • God may be bringing you this dilemma to put you in a situation that only He can get you out of. • Just because a situation turns left on you doesn’t mean the devil is behind it. • God may send Pharaoh and his army after you so you can see His deliverance in a way you would never see it otherwise. • It’s easy to get confused when you’re trapped between the Red Sea and Pharaoh’s army. • At times like this, you may be calling out to God for deliverance and blaming other people for the mess you’re in at the same time. 3. WHEN YOU’RE TRAPPED IN A DILEMMA, YOU MUST APPEAL TO SOMEONE WHO HAS A SPIRITUAL PERSPECTIVE. • Fear can lead you to blame the person who is most in touch with God (Exodus 14:10-12). • The person with the right spiritual perspective on your situation may tell you, “Just be quiet, and watch God work” (Exodus 14:13). • When we are fearful of circumstances that seem about to engulf us, it’s time to quit talking and start trusting. • Keeping silent and listening to the sound advice of godly spiritual leaders puts you in a position of submitting to legitimate spiritual authority, which pleases God. 4. FOCUS ON THE DIVINE DIRECTIONS, NOT THE HUMAN SITUATION. • When there is nothing you can do or should do in your dilemma, stand still! • When God says move forward, put feet to your faith (Exodus 14:14-15; Hebrews 11:29). • Until God sees faith, you won’t see God (Hebrews 11:6). 5. GOD WILL PUT YOU IN A DILEMMA, EVEN WHEN YOU ARE IN HIS WILL, SO YOU CAN SEE SOMETHING. • You may need to look at your dilemma in a different light, from God’s perspective. • Get in the will of God so He can turn your dilemma into something He can use. • Begin walking by faith because you now have a bigger view of the God who wants to show you His power that will blow your mind. SERMON ILLUSTRATIONS: A WINDING ROUTE It’s frustrating when God doesn’t seem to know how to lead you on a direct route! Instead, He takes you from point “A” to ‘F” and then back to “C,” only to bring you back to point “F” and wind up at point “X.” SPIRITUAL CUL-DE-SACS You know what a cul-de-sac is, a drive with only one way out—the way you came in. God led Israel into the worst culde-sac of all time when He put them up against the Red Sea with Pharaoh’s army coming along the only way out. That’s called a trap. A lot of us believe God wouldn’t lead us into a trap. Oh, but God does do that, because it is sometimes only in those situations that we come to learn He is God. When God is ready to move you to a new spiritual experience with Him, He will regularly do it in the midst of a contradiction and a conflict. QUOTES BY DR. TONY EVANS: “Unless you understand and accept the sovereignty of God over your dilemma, you will be confused about what is going on.” “Faith is in your feet, not in your feelings. I don’t care how ‘faith-ish”’ you feel, if your feet are not moving when God has given you instruction to move, you are faithless while feeling full of faith. On the other hand, you can feel no faith at all, but be full of faith because you are walking by faith, contradictory to your feelings of lack of faith.” “A lot of people are waiting on God, when God is actually waiting on us because while we are talking a good faith game, our feet haven’t moved. We haven’t operated on what He has told us to do.” “When God is ready to give you a new experience with Him, He will allow you to be put into a situation that only He can get you out of. It doesn’t matter who you know, how much money you have, where you live or the car you drive. When God is ready to give you a new experience with Him, He will regularly put you in a situation you can’t handle so you will see Him work in a way you’ve never seen before.”

Message 3 - Encountering God's Promise SUGGESTED PASSAGE: Genesis 22:1-18 Now it came about after these things, that God tested Abraham, and said to him, “Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” He said, “Take now your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I will tell you.” So Abraham rose early in the morning and saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him and Isaac his son; and he split wood for the burnt offering, and arose and went to the place of which God had told him. On the third day Abraham raised his eyes and saw the place from a distance. Abraham said to his young men, “Stay here with the donkey, and I and the lad will go over there; and we will worship and return to you.”  Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac his son, and he took in his hand the fire and the knife. So the two of them walked on together.  Isaac spoke to Abraham his father and said, “My father!” And he said, “Here I am, my son.” And he said, “Behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?”  Abraham said, “God will provide for Himself the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” So the two of them walked on together. Then they came to the place of which God had told him; and Abraham built the altar there and arranged the wood, and bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. 11 But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” He said, “Do not stretch out your hand against the lad, and do nothing to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me.” Then Abraham raised his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him a ram caught in the thicket by his horns; and Abraham went and took the ram and offered him up for a burnt offering in the place of his son. Abraham called the name of that place The Lord Will Provide, as it is said to this day, “In the mount of the Lord it will be provided.” Then the angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven, and said, “By Myself I have sworn, declares the Lord, because you have done this thing and have not withheld your son, your only son, indeed I will greatly bless you, and I will greatly multiply your seed as the stars of the heavens and as the sand which is on the seashore; and your seed shall possess the gate of their enemies. In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice.” So Abraham returned to his young men, and they arose and went together to Beersheba; and Abraham lived at Beersheba. MESSAGE GOAL: The goal of this message on Encountering God’s Promise is to help you experience an authentic encounter with God and His promises through the tests of life He puts you through. INTRODUCTION: If the truth be told, there are times in our Christian experience when we don’t feel like God keeps His promises. There are times when it looks like God said one thing and the opposite is taking place. It is during those times when all of us, to varying degrees, question how real this thing is. When it comes to God’s promises, we know He can’t lie, but sometimes you lied to you because what He says and what you are seeing do not match. Sometimes it looks like God is bailing out on us. It’s like the pilot of a small plane that began having engine problems. There was only one parachute on the plane. So, the pilot put it on, and before he jumped out of the plans he said to his passengers, “Don’t panic. I’m just going to get some help!” Sometimes it seems like the one in charge has bailed out on you and on His promises. I want to take you today to a passage of Scripture that is going to stretch you if you’re not familiar with it. And even if you are, it’s going to perhaps take you to a place of deeper understanding God and His seemingly confusing promises to you. SERMON POINTS: 1. WHEN GOD WANTS TO GIVE YOU AN ENCOUNTER WITH HIMSELF, IT WILL TYPICALLY INVOLVE A TEST. • God wants to know if what you “Amened” on Sunday is real in your life on Monday, because He wants to see and hear more than your raised hands and words. • Tests come in many shapes and sizes, and they are often related to a promise, to find out if you will put your faith in God’s promises into action. 2. YOUR TEST WILL OFTEN INVOLVE A SCENARIO THAT IS CONTRADICTORY—THAT DOESN’T MAKE SENSE. • God may be asking you to do something that seems to go against everything that seems right and normal to you, and everything in you is fighting against obeying Him. • When God calls you to do something you don’t want to do, go ahead and do it because the longer you delay your obedience, the more often you have to take the same test. • We often give God partial obedience and then wonder why He hasn’t done anything for us. • To experience a truly life-changing encounter with God, you have to finish what He told you to do in your test because God believes in re-testing when necessary! • When God’s test doesn’t make sense, you need a bigger view of God and what He wants to do in your life. • One way to get this bigger view is to remember what God did for you yesterday as you deal with the new test He is sending you today. 3. THE REASON GOD PUTS YOU IN A TRIAL THAT DOESN’T MAKE SENSE IS THAT HE WANTS TO FEEL YOUR LOVE, NOT JUST HEAR YOU TALK ABOUT HOW MUCH YOU LOVE HIM. • God feels your love for Him when, in obedience, you choose Him over something or somebody you already love, as Abraham did. • You will see the resolution of your test and see God’s promise come to fruition when your obedience occurs. • The Lord is called Jehovah Jireh in Genesis 22:14, meaning “The Lord who provides.” But before God provides, He wants to see our obedience. • If you don’t give God something to see, you may not see what He can provide. 4. GOD’S PROMISES ARE CONFIRMED BY HIS OATH. • It’s important to understand that there is often a lapse of time between the giving of God’s promise and its fulfillment. • This time gap occurs because God is getting His promise ready for you, and getting you ready for His promise. • You have a part to play in how long this preparation period lasts, based on your obedience. • God is a promise-keeper, not a promise-breaker, and when He makes an oath, He has the power to pull off the promise all by Himself. • It is not for you to try and understand how God is going to keep His promise. All you’ve got to do is finish your obedience until He is ready to take it over Himself. 5. ABRAHAM’S STORY IS IN SCRIPTURE BECAUSE GOD WANTS TO USE SOMETHING TODAY BASED ON THE PRINCIPLE HE HAS TAUGHT US FROM YESTERDAY. • God uses tests to bring about His promises through His oath. • You need to make sure you are passing God’s test so you can see God’s promises fulfilled in your life. SERMON ILLUSTRATIONS:QUIZZES AND BIG TESTS When we were in school, the teacher did not take our word for it that we understood what was being taught. Instead, the teacher gave you tests to see if you really got the material. Those tests usually came in two forms. One would be a quiz, or maybe a pop quiz. Those were small tests along the way. But then there were the big tests—the mid-term and the final. Those big tests usually counted the most toward your final grade. Genesis 22 was one of the big tests for Abraham. PUT A FORK IN IT Good cooks know that a turkey or a roast in the oven can look brown on the outside. But you can’t take that as gospel because the meat may still be partially uncooked on the inside. So the cook sticks a fork in the dish because the cook knows it can look good externally and still be raw inside. God knows His people can look good externally on Sunday morning, but He has to stick the fork of a test in there to see if we’re well-done and ready to go. BACKGROUND BIBLICAL HISTORY AND CULTURE: The place where Abraham offered Isaac is called Mount Moriah, which is the temple mount in Jerusalem where the two temples of Israel were built and where the Muslim Dome of the Rock stands today. The temple mount is the most sacred site in Judaism, and Muslims consider it holy too because the Qur’an teaches that Abraham offered Ishmael there, not Isaac. QUOTES BY DR. TONY EVANS: “Everybody feels like going to church when you’re blessed. Everybody feels like worshiping God when God is meeting all your needs, and He’s going to take care of everything. The money is flowing, the health is good and life is working. Then you want to worship. But how do you worship when your world is falling apart?” “When God puts you in a contradiction, you can’t explain how it’s going to work out. When God wants you to give you an encounter with Himself, all you can say is, ‘I don’t know what to do.’ God has to provide something. God has to come through with something.” “Many of us could be delaying seeing the provision of the ram, the solution to our test, because we are delaying fulfilling our obedience."

"Returning to God" 1 Samuel 7:3-4 Introduction From Aaron and the golden calf to Paul and the altar to an unknown God, idolatry is discussed and illustrated as the governing sin throughout the Bible. All other sins are rooted in this primary sin of removing God from His central place in our lives. Idolatry happens when we replace God as our priority with any other person, place, thing or thought as our source. When we allow creation to compete with the Creator, God will not manifest His presence and work in our lives. The cost of idolatry is high. It results in the loss of God’s presence and power operating in and through us. It makes us vulnerable to attack by our spiritual enemy Satan and to the enemy of circumstances. That is why idolatry must be addressed when it becomes a stronghold for us. The cure for idolatry is straightforward, but it requires sincere commitment. First, we overcome idolatry by repositioning God in our lives. God cannot accept second place. Once we make God subservient or equal to something or someone else, we have taken Him out of His proper position. We restore Him to His rightful place in our lives by committing to make Him first in everything. Second, we overcome idolatry by returning to God in our hearts. We cannot simply say that we are putting God first. Our hearts should be sincerely devoted to God so that our actions show that our relationship with Him is primary. Third, we overcome idolatry by reprioritizing God in our service. Every day, we serve in various ways – at our jobs, in church, at school or for our family. But, in all of those things, we should ultimately be serving our Lord. Everything we do should be done to serve Him and for His glory (1 Corinthians 10:31). When we prioritize God in our service, we remove idolatry and thereby position ourselves for God to work in our lives and on our behalf. Getting Started 1. What things do you and others tend to idolize and put in first place rather than God? 2. Think about the primary human relationships in your life. How do you treat them? How do you let that person know they come first for you? 3. What things do you and others tend to idolize and put in first place rather than God? 4. Think about the primary human relationships in your life. How do you treat them? How do you let that person know they come first for you? Let's Get Personal 1. After listening to this week’s message, what idols did you become aware of that keep pushing God out of first place in your life? 2. What hinders you from removing those idols and devoting your heart and service to God? 3. In what areas of your life do you find it most difficult to serve for God’s glory rather than for the praise of others? Take the Next Step 1. What steps can you take this week to remove your idols and reposition God as first in your life? How will you demonstrate to God that your relationship with Him is the most important relationship to you? 2. In what areas have you not been serving for God’s glory? Confess those areas to God and commit to pray that God will reprioritize things in your heart and mind so that you are not serving yourself or other people but only Him. 3. Want to go deeper? Take time to look at the following passages: James 4:7-10; 1 Samuel 7:3-4; Ezekiel 14:1-8; Isaiah 44:9-20; Deuteronomy 32:21; Psalm 78:58; Exodus 20:1-8; 1 Corinthians 10:19-22; Psalm 135:15-18; Romans 1:18-25; 1 John 5:21; Colossians 3:5; 2 Kings 17:33; 2 Kings 17:41. Renew Your Mind “Then Samuel spoke to all the house of Israel, saying, ‘If you return to the LORD with all your heart, remove the foreign gods and the Ashtaroth from among you and direct your hearts to the LORD and serve Him alone; and He will deliver you from the hand of the Philistines.’” 1 Samuel 7:3

"Returning to God Through Prayer" Matthew 6:5-13 Introduction Prayer is like the National Anthem before a football game for many of us. It gets the game started but has no connection with what’s happening on the field and is more courtesy. However, prayer is not to be an empty, meaningless religious formality. Prayer is relational communication with God, and He wants us to relate to Him through prayer, not just carry on a formality. When we relate to God, we connect and partner with Him to bring Heaven’s provision to earth. When we relate to God, it should be based on who He is (the Father) and what He is like (perfection). The more we know about Him, the more we can pray intelligently. God wants Heaven to manifest in history based on His word to accomplish His will. We must consider how God rules and His will regarding that rule as we pray. We ask these questions so that we can make decisions consistent with Heaven as we pray to Him about our needs on earth. When we consider the provisions of prayer, we understand prayer recognizes God as the source for meeting our physical needs, pardoning sin and protection from Satan. He is the source for us to operate on earth while fulfilling His will from heaven. When we pray, we start with acknowledging the person of God: ‘Our Father, who is in Heaven, Hallowed by Your name. ’Matt. 6:9 and we finish with the praise of God: ‘For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.’ Matt. 6:13. And in doing so, we recognize that our needs are met between the start and finish. Getting Started 1. When are the times that you are most likely to pray? Are these times a routine practice for you? 2. What new principle did you learn about prayer this week? How will this knowledge affect your prayer life? Let's Get Personal 1. How do you relate to the person of God? Do you see Him as your father? Do you see Him as the standard of perfection? 2. What challenges do you have with prayer and relating to the personhood of God? 3. In what ways do you fail to recognize God as your source for meeting physical life needs? Take the Next Step 1. What steps are you taking to prioritize God’s program of prayer so that His rule can manifest in your life? 2. In what areas of your life are you willing to surrender to prayer so that God may be the source of your physical life needs, pardon sin, and protection from Satan? 3. Want to go deeper? Take time to look at the following passages: 2 Kings 20:1-11; Matthew 18:19- 20; 1 Thessalonians 5:17; Ephesians 6:18; John 16:23-27; Mark 11:20-26; Luke 11:5-13; Luke 7:1- 10; James 5:13-18; Ephesians 3:13-21; Luke 18:1-8; Ephesians 1:15-23 Renew Your Mind “With every prayer and request, pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be alert with perseverance and every request for all the saints.” Ephesians 6:18

"Returning to God in Unity" Ephesians 4:1-6 Introduction Many fish species swim together in groups called schools to survive. The school creates a tight formation that moves swiftly in perfect unison as if it is one larger fish. As a group, the fish are able to frighten or confuse predators, conserve energy and find food more efficiently. This natural marvel illustrates the power of unity. Biblical unity means oneness in purpose. As believers, we are joined together as members of the body of Christ, the church (Ephesians 4:4). Each member has a distinct function, but we have only one purpose: glorify God. The church reflects the unity of God Himself, one God in three co-equal persons, distinct in function while unified in essence. God operates in unity, both within Himself and His church. Therefore, one of the greatest weapons in Satan’s arsenal is stirring up division among believers. When we are not united in purpose, we cannot work together to accomplish God’s will for us. The problem is that people tend to destroy unity through illegitimate criteria such as race, culture, gender or status. These criteria are established by man apart from God. Our God is a God of peace who breaks down barriers (Ephesians 2:14). Instead of viewing each other through the lens of love, we allow our differences to cloud our vision, thereby denying God the opportunity to answer our prayers and manifest His power in our lives, churches, and communities. The only way to achieve unity is through the love principle, by deciding to compassionately, righteously and responsibly seek the wellbeing of others. Love is a choice. Scripture says we love one another by pursuing peace and building one another up (Romans 14:19) and that, in humility, we should consider others as more important than ourselves (Philippians 2:3). While it may not always be an easy task or happen organically, we must strive for unity and fight to preserve it. Getting Started 1. Besides fish swimming in schools, what are other examples of unity in nature? 2. What are some reasons that people are not unified in our culture today? Let's Get Personal 1. How do you understand biblical unity differently in light of this message? 2. What is currently causing division in your life between yourself and someone else (family member, friend, co-worker or fellow believer)? 3. How have you been lacking in love toward other believers or unbelievers? Take the Next Step 1. Think of two people with whom you need to build unity. In what ways can you seek to love them, pursue peace with them, and build them up this week? 2. What are ways you can begin to pray consistently for unity in your family, your church, and our nation? What are Scriptures about unity you can start to memorize? 3. Want to go deeper? Take time to look at the following passages: Ephesians 4:1-6; Romans 14:1- 19; Numbers 12:1-16; Psalm 133:1-3; 1 Corinthians 12:13; Galatians 2:11-20; Matthew 12:25-29; John 4:1-40; 1 Peter 2:9; Ephesians 2:11-22; Romans 16:17-18; 2 Corinthians 5:16-17; Genesis 11:1-9; John 17:11-24; Matthew 18:18-20; 1 Corinthians 7:5; 1 Corinthians 1:10-13; James 2:1-13; Galatians 3:28. Renew Your Mind “There is one body and one Spirit, just as also you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all.” Ephesians 4:4-6

“Returning to God”  1 Samuel 7:3-4 Introduction From Aaron and the golden calf to Paul and the altar to an unknown God, idolatry is discussed and illustrated as the governing sin throughout the Bible. All other sins are rooted in this primary sin of removing God from His central place in our lives. Idolatry happens when we replace God as our priority with any other person, place, thing or thought as our source. When we allow creation to compete with the Creator, God will not manifest His presence and work in our lives. The cost of idolatry is high. It results in the loss of God’s presence and power operating in and through us. It makes us vulnerable to attack by our spiritual enemy Satan and to the enemy of circumstances. That is why idolatry must be addressed when it becomes a stronghold for us. The cure for idolatry is straightforward, but it requires sincere commitment. First, we overcome idolatry by repositioning God in our lives. God cannot accept second place. Once we make God subservient or equal to something or someone else, we have taken Him out of His proper position. We restore Him to His rightful place in our lives by committing to make Him first in everything. Second, we overcome idolatry by returning to God in our hearts. We cannot simply say that we are putting God first. Our hearts should be sincerely devoted to God so that our actions show that our relationship with Him is primary. Third, we overcome idolatry by reprioritizing God in our service. Every day, we serve in various ways – at our jobs, in church, at school or for our family. But, in all of those things, we should ultimately be serving our Lord. Everything we do should be done to serve Him and for His glory ( 1 Corinthians 10:31 ). When we prioritize God in our service, we remove idolatry and thereby position ourselves for God to work in our lives and on our behalf. Getting Started 1. What things do you and others tend to idolize and put in first place rather than God? 2. Think about the primary human relationships in your life. How do you treat them? How do you let that person know they come first for you? 3. What things do you and others tend to idolize and put in first place rather than God? 4. Think about the primary human relationships in your life. How do you treat them? How do you let that person know they come first for you? Let’s Get Personal 1. After listening to this week’s message, what idols did you become aware of that keep pushing God out of first place in your life? 2. What hinders you from removing those idols and devoting your heart and service to God? 3. In what areas of your life do you find it most difficult to serve for God’s glory rather than for the praise of others? Take the Next Step 1. What steps can you take this week to remove your idols and reposition God as first in your life? How will you demonstrate to God that your relationship with Him is the most important relationship to you? 2. In what areas have you not been serving for God’s glory? Confess those areas to God and commit to pray that God will reprioritize things in your heart and mind so that you are not serving yourself or other people but only Him. 3. Want to go deeper? Take time to look at the following passages:  James 4:7-10 ;  1 Samuel 7:3-4 ;  Ezekiel 14:1-8 ;  Isaiah 44:9-20 ;  Deuteronomy 32:21 ;  Psalm 78:58 ;  Exodus 20:1-8 ;  1 Corinthians 10:19-22 ;  Psalm 135:15-18 ;  Romans 1:18-25 ;  1 John 5:21 ;  Colossians 3:5 ;  2 Kings 17:33 ;  2 Kings 17:41 . Renew Your Mind “Then Samuel spoke to all the house of Israel, saying, ‘If you return to the LORD with all your heart, remove the foreign gods and the Ashtaroth from among you and direct your hearts to the LORD and serve Him alone; and He will deliver you from the hand of the Philistines.’”  1 Samuel 7:3