God Blesses A Heart Of Integrity
MESSAGE TRANSCRIPTION:
Can you smell the fire in this place this morning? I believe man camp has arrived this morning. Come on, give Him praise this place for what he’s doing in our men, what he’s doing in our church. You know, we are just saying these lyrics that are just promises from God that nothing compares with God. Amen. We just sang those lyrics. I have to tell you, gosh, sometimes I think everything comes against me. I think sometimes, something that says nothing can stand against him. And I feel like there are days when everything stands against me. I don’t know about you, but it stands. Sometimes it’s coming against my business, it comes against my family, it comes against my friends, and sometimes it even challenges my faith. March 15th, 2020 is a day I have burned in my memory because the government said, Mike and Sherry, you got to shut down your business. You got to close your doors. You can’t have people inside your building because of COVID. And not only did that affect my family and everything that we’ve been working on for years and years and years to build and to grow, and anybody ever heard of a mortgage? Yeah, I had like eight or nine of them. Here’s the thing. Not only that, but I had nine or ten families, depending on Sherry and me, to help them have a place to go to provide a livelihood for their families. And at the same time, my family was going through this crisis of brokenness. We even saw two of our good friends senselessly taken out of this life. But here’s what I know. God never took his eyes off of me. God never took our eyes off my family. Sherry and I gave our business to God a long time ago. And I want you to know that God came in, and He took over my business. 2020 ended up being a record year. And that wasn’t because of us. It was because of God. God healed the brokenness in my family, and he’s healing the brokenness in our family still. And he’s moving. And I want you to know that even in the darkest times and in the most tragic times, God sees you, and nothing can separate you. Romans 8:38 says that nothing can separate you from God. Amen. There’s nothing that’s going to get between you and God. Come on. Nothing’s going to come between you and him. He’s coming after you. He’s here. He’s ready. And so as we sing this through one more time, as we come into this, we want you to sing with every voice, with all the heart that you have. Because God is here for you this morning, and He spares nothing to come to you and take you out of your darkness. So let’s respond with our voices in our hearts. Let’s sing this out.
You can be seated. Well, Good Morning, everyone. Welcome, Man Camp. Was it cold up there? Little cold. We’re glad to have you back. And I’m thankful for everything that the Lord did over that weekend. I can’t wait to hear more about it. You know, one of the things that each side is known for is some phrases. We talk about the perfect place for imperfect people. Everyone’s welcome. One of you knew that. So it’s okay not to be okay. All of those words and phrases describes Eastside. But then there’s another word that we should add to the rotation. And that is the word faith that whatever God asks us to do something, we don’t hesitate. We step out in faith, and we follow through with actions and sacrifices anybody knows what I’m talking about? Yeah, I mean, think about this. You know, several years ago, God asked us in faith to step out and build the atrium that you fellowshipped in this morning. Could you imagine a church without the atrium? Since we built that, God has done some wonderful and beautiful things through that. A couple of years ago, God asked us to step out in faith, remodel the worship center, and redo the kid’s ministry. Aren’t grateful that we stepped out in faith and did that. And with that, a beautiful thing. And then, this past winter, what do we do right in the middle of a pandemic? We felt that God wanted us to launch the Compassion Project to help families in need through the pandemic. And so we launched that. And you responded. We responded to the congregation, and you gave over $120,000. We’ve paid mortgages, we’ve paid rent, We’ve paid electric bills. We’ve bought food. We bought kerosene for families. We even gave God’s Outreach $40,000 to help with a new food truck so that they can transport food to other counties around here. During all of that, every time that God has revealed himself and asked us to step out in faith, we have stepped out in faith. Am I right or wrong? Have we done that? Yeah, every single time we’ve done that. I just want to share with you that we believe that God is asking us to step out in faith again. And for some of you, what I’m about to tell you, you’re not going to believe. But God asked us to do three things this coming year. I want to share that with you. For you that are new or newer around here. This church was founded for Families with Young Children, is founded for young families, and me and my two brothers and my sister. We’re beneficiaries of that mission, of that vision, to have a church for young families with children. We want that to continue. We want that legacy to keep moving.
All three of these things that God is asking us to do two of them is to launch two new ministries. Another one is to relaunch a third one. They all have to do with families with young children. Are you ready to hear? Yeah. Yeah. Are two of you Ready? Okay, here we go real quick. A year ago, we had a couple in our church, Bobby and Liz Jones, who had a burden to start a ministry called E-buddies. Here E-buddies is a ministry for special needs children that families can bring their children to, and we will have someone paired up with that child and help them in their worship time and in their classroom time. And what started out as just a need, a burden. We’re now averaging five or six different children every weekend. Who’s coming? Yep. Yep. And we believe that God wants to grow that ministry. And if we’re going to be for someone in Madison County, what better group of people to be for than to provide a place for families to come, their children to be in a safe environment, and for the parents to come and experience, worship and experience the presence of the Lord in a corporate setting. And so we believe that God wants to take that ministry and continue to grow it. And one of the things that we have to do, we have to build a special needs room. And I don’t know what all that means, but some of your many of you are educators, you know what that means. Special flooring, special walls, special lighting, a special entrance, and all of that. And as a result of us needing to do that, we have to move—the fourth and fifth grades. We have to upgrade that room, upgrade some offices. So it’s a domino effect. And so we are anticipating God doing some great things through the special needs program. Is that exciting or what? Come on, church Yeah, that’s exciting right there. The second thing, I don’t know what it is, but we are having a lot of babies around here at Eastside. I wonder if it’s the coffee or something. I’m afraid to drink the coffee at the church. I don’t know what it is, but we’re having babies everywhere. And that puts a special kind of stress on families, especially when both parents are working. And so one of the things that we believe that God’s leading us to do in the future is to open up a preschool and daycare. And so one of the things that we’re going to do is we’re going to start on a very limited basis, probably early next year, doing kind of a trial run to see what the need and what the interest is. And then, as we grow in learning what that looks like, then we’ll open that up eventually to a full-time Christian preschool and daycare. But that’s yet to be determined. We still got a lot of planning to do, but we believe that God’s leading us to do that. And the third thing that has to do with children is a ministry that we want to relaunch, is that we want to bring back feed my starving children next year, and we want to pack. For you that don’t know how to feed my starving children is where we bring the raw ingredients here. We pack the food, and we box it up, and then the organization sends it to like literally 30 different countries around the world that provide healthy meals for children and families who cannot provide for themselves.
All of that, from our best guess, is going to cost us around $185,000 to do all those changes. And so what we’re going to ask you to do, we’re going to ask you to pray a prayer. And the prayer is God, what do you want to do through me to step out in faith, to help to meet these needs? And some of you, you’re going to make a one-time donation, and you want to make that by the end of the year because of tax purposes. Some of you are going, I want to get behind this, but I can’t make the donation until the first of next year. Some of you are going to go, okay, well, I’m going to up my giving. I’m giving $20 a week. I’m going to go to $30 a week to help to provide for this. Some of you have never stepped into generosity. But you know what? This is a good time for me to step into generosity. And you’re going to sign up, and you’re going to join and start giving $10, $20, $50 a week or a month or whatever that God lays on your heart. And all of this is going to go toward helping us to launch these three ministries. Now, what we’re asking you to do, we’re asking you just to pray and say, God, what do you want to do through me? To step out in faith to meet these needs? If you pray, I promise you this God will answer. And what we’re going to do we’re going to ask you to text the end of the year to this number (859)358-0286. And you will receive a link to a form for you to fill out. And this form that you fill out will help us to know your intentions. So maybe you’re going to make a donation first part of next year, or maybe you’re going to make one at the end of the year. We’re trying to keep tabulations, and this goes to our financial director here at the church, Nicole Cheney. This is her number. So you’re texting that. She’ll send you a link to the form to fill out to let us know of your intentions. I’m really excited. We’ve already had people from the first service people come up crying, saying thank you for believing in the special needs ministry. We’ve had people step up and say, Hey, I’m all in to help with the preschool program and daycare. Whatever you need, I’m available. I want to help because I believe in this. And so God’s already showing up and showing off, and we just want to make you aware of that. Does that sound good? All right. I think it sounds good. All right, enough of that.
Let’s get it to the word of God. Let’s talk about a blessed life in a broken world. We’ve been looking at eight ways by which God wants to bless your life. And we’re going through the Sermon on the Mount, more specifically, the Beatitudes. And we’re looking at eight different ways we’re on way six. If you missed any of the messages, you can go back to our website, and you can catch up. But we’re talking about the world’s perspective versus God’s perspective. For example, today, the world is consumed with images. The world is consumed with the way that people look at us. We would call that what? Reputation and reputation is what the public thinks of me and what the world thinks of me, and most of us here today we’re consumed with what other people think about us. In fact, for most of us, our identity is in what other people say about us rather than have them in Jesus Christ. Now, this obsession with image is something that’s not new. It’s been around, at least since the time of Samuel. The Prophet in the Old Testament, remember, is that Saul was the King. He’s blown his leadership abilities. Samuel has been asked by the Lord to go and not the next King. And so look what happens.
“When they arrived, Samuel saw Eliab and thought, ‘Surely the Lord’s anointed stands here before the Lord.’ But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”
1 Samuel 16:6-7 (NIV)
The Lord looks at the inside, but the world looks at the image. Now, here’s the thing that you need to understand is that the world’s obsession with image has been around since the beginning of time. Then when Jesus comes onto the scene, is now infiltrated the church and the church leaders. Now the church is concerned about the image. The church is concerned about reputation. The religious leaders and scholars of that day and age were called the Pharisees in the Sadducees, and they were the religious elite, and they were all about the show. There was nothing about the heart. And Jesus ran and butt heads with the Pharisees and the Sadducees over and over and over because Jesus is saying it was a relationship with God. It’s not about your appearance. It’s not about your image. And so Jesus confronts this over and over. But here’s one particular case in Matthew 23. Now notice what happens.
“Now Jesus turned to address his disciples, along with the crowd that had gathered with them. The religion scholars and Pharisees are competent teachers in God’s Law. You won’t go wrong in following their teachings on Moses. But be careful about following them. They talk a good line, but they don’t live it. They don’t take it into their hearts and live it out in their behavior. It’s all spit-and-polish veneer. Instead of giving you God’s Law as food and drink by which you can banquet on God, they package it in bundles of rules, loading you down like pack animals. They seem to take pleasure in watching you stagger under these loads, and wouldn’t think of lifting a finger to help.Their lives are perpetual fashion shows, embroidered prayer shawls one day and flowery prayers the next. They love to sit at the head table at church dinners, basking in the most prominent positions, preening in the radiance of public flattery, receiving honorary degrees, and getting called “Doctor’ and ‘Reverend’.”
Matthew 23:1-7 (MSG)
Folks, what was true then is true today. Many people are still seeking the applause and the accolades of mankind. And many of you are here today, and you are all about the image, you’re all about the title, you’re all about the pay, you’re all about the achievements, you’re all about the degrees. You’re all about what comes after your name. It’s all about climbing the corporate ladder. It’s about if I can get to this position if I can become vice president, if I become president, if I become the president of the region or the regional president or the regional marketing director, whatever. It’s for some of you is all about a pay grade. It’s about the pay level. You know what some of you said if I can ever get to $100,000, I will have arrived. Folks, let me just say something, it worked back then, and it’s not going to work today, nor is it going to work tomorrow. Here’s the reason why I know it never works. And here’s the reason is that every time you achieve whatever you go after, the benchmark begins to move. Guess what happens? Some of you are going. If I can make $100,000 a year, then I will arrive. But when you arrived at $100,000, guess what? You’re going to realize there are people around you. What? Making 150,000 or 200,000. And then I have to go there. And so here’s the thing, my friends, is being image-driven does not work. Seeking the things the world does not work. This is the reason why Jesus comes along, and Jesus turns the thought process of the entire society upside down. Jesus says, you know what? If you want peace, if your only purpose, if you want power in your lives, it’s not in the things of the world, but it’s actually in pursuing God himself. Notice what Jesus says in Matthew chapter five, verse eight. Read it out loud with me in full voice.
“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.”
Matthew 5:8 (NIV)
Some of you are going, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Pastor, does that mean what I think it means? Because if it means what I think it means, I’m toast. How many of you are toast? I mean. I mean, Right? Because if you are pure and hard. I’m never going to see God. So let me tell you what Jesus means here. And sometimes, the best way to tell you what Jesus is saying is to tell you what he’s not saying. Jesus is not saying that you have to be without sin in order to see God. Because if that were the case, would any of us get to see God? Absolutely. Why? The Bible says that all have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory. Jesus is also not saying that you have to be perfect because, let me ask a question is the question. Is there anybody in this room who’s perfect? No, none of us. We’ve all full of imperfection. We’ve all fallen short. So he’s not saying that. He’s also not saying that you cannot ever make a mistake because we’ve all made mistakes. So the question becomes, what does Jesus mean when he says blessed are the pure in heart? What does he mean? Now, before I answer that, let me just ask you a question. How many of you really desire to see God? You see, it means you really desire to see God. Let me ask you another question. How many of you deep down desire in the deepest part of your heart and soul to experience the presence of God? How many of you desire to experience the presence? How many of you, deep down in the deepest part of your heart and soul, desire to experience the power of God in your life? How many of you, deep down in the deepest part of your heart and soul, desire to live out the purpose of God for your life? How many of you, deep down, want to be the personal friend of God? How many of you want to experience the peace of God in your life? How many of you want to experience the pardon of God in your life? See, folks, listen to me if you want to experience God, his power, his presence, his pardon, and his purpose for your life. There’s only one way to do it. And that one way is to get up close to God. So when God says blessed of the pure in heart, what he’s talking about? Not that you’re perfect. Not that you don’t make any mistakes. Not that you’re sinless. What he’s saying is, is blessed are those who want to get close to God, who wants to have a relationship with God. When you get up close to God, then you’ll be able to see God. And here’s the thing, my friends. Many of you? Do you wish that you could experience the power in the presence of God? Many of you are angry because you’re expecting God to show up, and God’s not showing up, and he’s not showing off in your life. And so, instead of you wishing or being angry about God not showing up and showing up, I want to help you this morning to see that you can get up close to God. And when you get up close to God, God will reveal himself in each and every situation that you would like for him to be involved in. Now, let me ask you a question. Here’s the question is.
Where do you want to see God show up and show off in your life?
Then get up close to God!
Here’s what I believe. I believe everyone in this room that there’s an arena of your life that you are needing God to show up and show off, and you’re saying, God, why are you showing up and showing up in this arena of my life? The answer is always. Then you have to get up close to God. For some of you, your marriage is hanging on by a thread on the image. The reputation in the church is your marriage is great. You’re the model couple. But behind closed doors, your marriage is hanging on by a thread. If something doesn’t happen, if God doesn’t show up and show off, you’re going to end up in divorce. Some of you are here, and Thanksgiving is next week. You know, next Sunday is the week of Thanksgiving, and you’ve got broken relationships with extended family members, and you’re already dreading the holidays. You’re needing God to show up and show up in a family relationship. If you want that to happen, then you better get up close to God. Some of you are you’re here, and you’ve got a wayward child, and you got a child that you don’t have a real good relationship with. Or maybe you have a child who hates you, and somehow or another, you want that relationship restored. Then how do you do it if you are close to God? Some of you are here, and your career is a dead end. And you’re saying, God, could you ever resurrect a dead career? And the answer is yes. Suppose you want God to show up and show off in your career that you need to get close to God. For some of you, it’s your finances. For others of you, it’s your friendship. For some of you, it’s stability in your life. Some of you you like to have some security in your life. You want to have security. You want to have stability. Then you get up close to God. Wherever you need God at in your life. Then you have to get close to God. But the question becomes, Well, how do you do that? Well, look what it says in Psalm chapter 15. David is speaking here and is using a metaphor. He says this Lord, who may stay in your sanctuary and live on your holy mountain. In other words, God, who can be your friend, is. What David is saying is that he’s asking the question, Who can know your favor? Who can know your peace? Who can know your purpose? Who can know your power? And so David is asking this question over and over Who can live in your holy mountain? And then he answers it. He says The one who gets up close to God. You will live in the power, the presence, the purpose, and the pardon of God. Then you get up close to him. How do you do it? Here’s what happens, friends. The devil makes us think that it’s impossible to get up close to God. And the reality is, is that it’s really very simple for us to get up close and near to God.I can give you a hundred different ways of how you could draw close to God. But I just want to give you two simple ways that I have discovered that you can get up close to God. The first one is if you’re taking notes.
How to Get Up Close to God!
By PRAYING.
Now, I’ve been in ministry for 32 years, and I’ve observed a lot of things about prayer. And some of them are good. Some of them are not really good. But I want to give you three observations about prayer. Because if you don’t understand prayer, then you never leverage prayer to get up close to God. See, folks, we think that prayer is not natural for us, but here’s what I want you to see.
3 Observations about Prayer:
We are WIRED to pray.
As human beings, we’ve all had this D.N.A. where there’s genetically encoded D.N.A. inside of us that makes us desire to call out in prayer. Do you understand that everybody prays? Everybody in the world prays. Do you know that a Buddhist prayer? Hindus pray. Muslims pray. Jews pray. Christians pray. Secular people pray. Do you even know this? Even atheists, even they pray. What about that? Do you believe it? Let me tell you how I know. Here’s how I know you can find an atheist, and you hit that atheist right in the nose as hard as you can. Do you know what they’ll do every single time? They’ll go, Oh, God, That’s what they do. They pray every single time. Every time you hurt them, they’ll pray to God because they don’t go, Oh, me or Oh, Mohammed. They say Oh, God. But because they pray, that’s just all you have to do, just hurt them, and they pray. And here’s what I’m trying to say. Everybody prays in every culture they pray. Wherever you go in the world, everybody prays because why God created us with an internal desire to seek him and to pray. In fact, we are made in this image. What does it mean to be made in his image? It means that we are made in his image, and we seek after him. In fact, this is what the book of Ecclesiastes tells us.
“God has set eternity in the human heart.”
Ecclesiastes 3:11 (NIV)
Folks. God has placed within our heart eternity. Which means what? It means that we all know. You may be here today, and you may not be a believer. But you know that there’s more to this life than the here and now. You know that there’s something bigger that’s out there. You know that there’s got to be something beyond us. And why do we have that desire? Because God has placed in her heart, has set in her heart, this thing that is called eternity. And God has given us this internal desire to talk to him. It’s a universal trait. Everybody prays at some point in their life. So we’re wired to pray. The second observation that I’ve learned about prayer is this.
3 Observations about Prayer:
We’re not VERY GOOD at prayer.
Now, how many of you would you admit that you’re not very good at prayer? Just raise your hand. Now, let me just say this. That many of us, we feel inadequate when it comes to prayer. I don’t, really. Know why we feel inadequate. Some people would say, Well, I don’t know what to pray for. Some people say I don’t know how to pray. Some people would say, I don’t know how to say it. Others would say, I don’t feel really confident. Most of you, if I were to call on you right now and say I want you to come up here and pray on stage out loud, one of two things would happen, right? One is that you would pass out, or two. You’d run out of the room and never come back to church. Right? Why? We all have this insecurity about prayers, and we feel inadequate about our prayers. And I don’t know why we feel inadequate, but we do. And here’s the thing, in all of my years of meeting people, and I’ve met a lot of people in my life, I’ve never met anyone who says, you know what? My number one gift in this is to pray. I can pray out loud with the best of them, Pastor, if you ever need anybody to pray. Just call me. I am your person. I’ve got a P.H.D. in prayer. I’m a pro-prayer. I’m a professional prayer. You know, whatever it is. I’ve never met anybody that does that. I mean, most people go, you know, Pastor, I really can’t speak out loud. I don’t know what to do. We feel inadequate at that. Folks, listen to me. We’re in great company because look what the Apostle Paul said in Romans.
“We do not know how to pray as we should.”
Romans 8:26 (NCV)
Folks, Paul says, I don’t even know how to pray for what I should pray for. The Apostle Paul feels that way. Then we should feel like we’re in good company. We need to learn the language of prayer. We all need to be in the School of Prayer. Let me just say something to you. God does not want you to feel lousy or feel inadequate about your prayers because listen to me, friends. Prayer is nothing more than talking to God. That’s all the prayer is. It is just for you to express yourself to God and listen to God. The third observation that I’ve made about prayer is this.
3 Observations about Prayer:
Our frustrations with prayer are caused by our MISCONCEPTIONS about prayer.
There are all these misconceptions. There are all these things that possess false information. That’s simply not true about prayer. We got all of these myths about prayer. What I want to do is I just want to give you four myths about prayer this morning. I want to dispel those myths so that you can just understand that prayer is just a conversation with God. Let me just ask you, friends, what would happen if we all started just having a conversation with God? On a regular ongoing basis. What do you think would happen in Madison County? What do you think would happen at Eastside? What do you think would happen at the end of the year Fund? I mean, this community would be turned upside down. So there are four myths about prayer that I want to dispel. The first one is this.
Four Myths About Prayer:
Prayer is not a MAGIC WAND!
Most of us think of prayer as God is in a bottle. He’s a genie, and all we have to do is just rub that bottle, and poof, outcomes. God and God say, Your wish is my command. Now, folks, listen. God doesn’t serve us. We serve God. We’ve got it reversed. Folks, listen to me. God is not a genie. We don’t have to say some special prayer. We don’t have to do a chant. We don’t have to do a ritual. We don’t have to do some secret words in order to pray to God. All that prayer is, is we talking to God. But we think that, well, you know what? If we don’t know all the special words and phrases, then God cannot show up and show off in my life. Folks, listen to me. You begin to talk to God, and you just begin to share with whatever’s on your heart. The second myth I want to share with you about prayer is this.
Four Myths About Prayer:
Prayer is not a FIRE EXTINGUISHER!
Now, when I was in school, I still think it’s probably still true. Is that all the fire extinguisher, which was at school, was recessed into the wall? Do you remember that? And there was glass. This, if I remember what it said on the glass. It says break in case of what? Of an emergency. And most of us look at prayer as a fasting watcher. We only use prayer when there’s an emergency. And when the emergency comes, we break it quickly. We pull that fire extinguisher out, and we begin to spray prayer everywhere. But folks, that’s not what prayer is. Prayer. His relationship with God that’s communicating. But here’s what happens. Our husbands are ready to leave us. Boom. We break the glass first single shot. We start spraying it everywhere. You know what? I’m about to lose my job. What do we do? Boom. We break it. You’ll pull the fire extinguisher out. Spray prayer everywhere. And then, after that is over with, we put the fire extinguisher back up. We don’t use it until the next emergency. In fact, our language even suggests that we use it as a fire extinguisher. Because what do we do? We go, Well, all we can do now is what? Pray. And then somebody will go, Well, surely you haven’t come down to that, has it? All you can do is pray. Folks, listen to me if God doesn’t want prayer to be your last resort. God wants prayer to be what? Your first choice. Your first resort. God wants you to pray about everything. God wants you to talk to Him about everything. God wants you to talk to him about the car that you’re going to buy. He wants you to talk to him about your next date if you’re single. He wants you to talk to him about how to strengthen your marriage. Whatever you’re dealing with. God wants you to speak with him and not look at him as a last resort. But number three, the third myth is this.
Four Myths About Prayer:
Prayer is not a TUG OF WAR.
Now, let me just tell you what I mean by that. Some of us think and believe that we have to convince God to hear our prayers and answer our prayers. And so we believe in this tug-of-war game. We believe that we have to take God over to our side. And if we can tug God over to her side, then God is going to hear prayers. He’s going to ask you folks, listen to me. God welcomes your prayer. God wants your conversation. God wants you to talk to him. God wants you to acknowledge him. You don’t have to barter with God, you know, to beg with God. You don’t have to bargain with God. You don’t even have to bribe God. God wants to show up and show off in your life, but you just have to have a conversation with him. Now, folks, think about this. Is that some of you, you beg God, You know, if I beg God enough, if I say pretty please, 92 times with sugar on top. God’s going to answer my prayer. You don’t have to do that. Some of you, you try to bribe God. Hey, God. You know what? If you do this for me, I’ll do that for you. And you’ll be. Blessed some of you. You’re here, and you bargain with God. And folks, you don’t have to do any of those things. Does it make sense? If you don’t understand these myths, then you see prayer as a magic wand. You see, prayer is a fire extinguisher. You see, prayer is a tug of war. But for some of you, the fourth way that you see prayer is you see.
Four Myths About Prayer:
Prayer is not a ritual to RELIEVE GUILT.
And that’s not what prayer is. See, some tradition teaches, and it’s tradition because it’s not in the word of God. Some tradition teaches that what you have to do is that if you sin big enough, you’ve got to go confess the sin. You have to go and ask for forgiveness and pray for it. You know, prayer is not a punishment for your sin. Prayer is not a duty. Prayer is not a responsibility. Prayer is a privilege. Prayer is a joy. It’s not a ritual to relieve guilt. If you want to get up close to God, the best way I know how to tell you to get close to God is by having a conversation. You know, folks, is that when you get up in the morning, you say, Hey, God, help me through this day. Hey, God, as I’m in the shower, I’m going to talk to my spouse. Help me to have patience with him or her. Will you say hey God, I’m going to go wake my children up? Help me to do that in a way that honors you. Is having a conversation with him. This is the reason why we issued the 14-prayer text messaging campaign a couple of weeks ago. We ask you to sign up. We had over 300 people who signed up and received daily text messages with a prayer and a Bible verse so that you could get up close again. Could you imagine what would happen if we became a praying church? What would happen is we would become a praising church. Our praise would be so loud because we would know that God is with us. He’s showing up and showing off in our lives. So folks, stop wishing, stop being mad at God for not showing up and showing off in your life, and just get up close to God. Does it make sense? The second thing I want to encourage you that you can do to get up close to God is this.
How to Get Up Close to God!
By SURROUNDING yourself with people that are close to God.
That’s what I love about Man Camp. That’s what I love about life groups. That’s what I love about serving teams. That’s what I love about so many different ministries or churches is that you begin to surround yourself with people that are close to God. Here’s a principle, my friends, whatever you put into your life is what you’re going to get out of your life. You become the average of the five people that you hang around with. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but it sounds really good. But just think about this. Who’s the five people that you’re hanging around with? Who are the five people that have the most influence in your life? And you’re going to become the average of those five people. Let me ask your question. Are those five people helping you to get closer to God? You know, a couple of weeks ago. We issued the challenge of you coming to church four weeks in a row. Many of you have done that, and there’s power in being consistent in your attendance. Let me tell you something. It’s even greater than your power of consistency. It is by surrounding yourself with people who are close to God. Because they can make a difference, they can speak truth in your life. They can help you. This is a reason why we’re passionate about you coming to Weekend services because weekend services. You get to hang around with people. And can I just say something to you? You get to hang around with people that are close to God. And we have been working like crazy and planning the services to the end of the year. In a couple of weeks, we’re going to be launching a brand new sermon series called Christmas Miracles. You’re going to hear some testimonies of some people that have witnessed a miracle in their lives that God’s done for them. Then we’re going to have winter wonderland, and we’re in the process of planning those out. And then we have Christmas Eve services. And we’re going to have just incredible services over the next 50 days. I would just encourage you to make it a priority to be here week in and week out. I would encourage you to find a life group. I’m just encouraging is surround yourself with people who are close to God. Now, this morning, before we close out on the end of your listening guide, there’s a question.
I want to see God show off in my…
What is the area that God needs to show up and show off in your life? And I went through some of those a few moments ago. And I want you to write it in. I want you to fill it out. I want you to type in your notes on your phone. I want you to send yourself a text message, whatever it takes. Because in a moment, I’m going to pray for God to show up and show off in that area of your life. Because here’s the reality, God wants to show up. God doesn’t want you in your marriage to limp along. God doesn’t want you to have broken relationships. God doesn’t want you to struggle financially. God is for you, my friends. And whatever area that you’re asking and needing God to show up and show off, would you write that in? Would you just type that in your notes section? Will you just take a moment and do that? And then just make the commitment that you’re going to get up close to God because you want to get up close so that you can. Watch God show off and show up in your life. So let me just pray for you. Let me ask you about your head. Farther right now. There are many people who. Believes that it’s impossible to get up close to God. They’ve tried it. They’ve attempted it. Maybe they have just been frustrated in their efforts. But, Father, the invitation is all the way through Scripture. For us to get up close to you. When we draw near to you, you draw near to us, the Scripture says. And Lord. Many of us in this room, if not all of us, have an arena in our life that we need you to show up and show off. We don’t know the timing. We don’t know when it is going to happen. But, Lord, what we’re going to do, we’re going to do our part, and we’re going to get up close to you. And as we get up close to you, then we’re just going to trust you. To do what only you can do. And so father for those marriages. For those broken relationships, for those dead-end careers. For those that are financially strapped. For those that are lonely and need friends. Father. I pray right now that they would just draw close to you and trust you. That you’ll give them the answer. Farther, we pray these things in the name of Jesus Amen.