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If you have your Bibles, we'll be in Ephesians chapter 1 this morning.

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Almost done with chapter 1.

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How's scripture memory going?

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Two men are seated across from each other in a dark room, outside a thunderstorm, rages

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in the night, shaking.

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The old house to its foundation, flashes of lightning, are dimmed by heavy curtains,

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which have been drawn in because it is a secret meeting.

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This is the first time these two men have met, though they have been searching for

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each other most of their lives.

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Not a moment too soon, their destinies have crossed.

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One of them, a tall black man dressed in all black, carries the aura of a spiritual master.

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The young man, trying his best to conceal the fact that he is frightened and uncertain,

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might become his disciple.

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It all depends on a decision.

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The situation, if you haven't figured out by the name of the sermon, or that description,

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comes from the movie The Matrix.

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One person, thank you.

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In the scene, Morpheus is trying to convince Neo that there is much more to life than meets

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the eye on an everyday basis.

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Now he comes to a crossroads.

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Morpheus gives him a choice.

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He says, this is your last chance.

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After this, there's no turning back.

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You can take the blue pill and the story ends.

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You wake up in your bed and you believe whatever you want to believe.

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Or you can take the red pill and you stay in Wonderland.

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And I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.

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If you've seen the movie, you know that Neo chooses the red pill.

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Although it has to be a pretty boring movie.

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He wants to see what he has been missing the entire time.

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Which pill would you choose?

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Now all of us can see this morning, I think.

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Some of us may need the aid of glasses or contacts.

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And some of us don't see as well as we used to.

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But we can all still see the physical world with our eyes.

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However, what if I told you that if you were just to look at the world through these eyes,

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through your physical eyes, you're taking the blue pill.

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I want us to step out in faith this morning and take the red pill.

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Let's see through a completely different set of eyes this morning that God has made available

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to us.

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And so let's see what I'm talking about here.

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Ephesians 1, I know we did it last week, but I'm going to start in verse 16 just so we

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can complete the thought, okay?

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I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord,

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Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation and

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the knowledge of him.

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Here's our text this morning, verse 18.

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Having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which

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he has called you.

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What are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints?

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And what is the immeasurable greatness of his power towards us who believe according to

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the working of his great might?

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This morning I want us to allow the Holy Spirit to explain to us through the Word of God what

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it means to open the eyes of our hearts.

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What exactly does it mean to have the eyes of our hearts opened?

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How many of you know the difference between street smarts and book smarts?

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Right?

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Yeah, hopefully most of us.

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Let me tell you a true story where I saw this play out first hand.

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Now, maybe it's because I understand that all men are sinful, okay?

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Maybe that's the reason that man on his own is not going to do good.

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Or it might be because I don't have the spiritual gift of mercy.

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But here's the story.

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Our last house in La Mesa, it was situated on a busy street similar to La Claire Road

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out here.

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However, our driveway didn't back up into the main road.

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It was off a side road.

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Across the street from my driveway, there was this rundown trailer house.

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Now, at this point in my life, I knew that some people are more poor than others, right?

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We know that.

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But I also knew for some, it was life decisions that led them to live in a house like the

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one across from my driveway.

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After a few weeks, I began to notice the pattern of the guy who lived there.

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He was home all the time.

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So I knew he wasn't going to work.

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But I also know that you have to have a job in order to pay for things like rent and food

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and utilities.

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So that was common sense to me.

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Then I began to notice that this man was popular.

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He had a lot of guests each and every day who also seemed to be struggling financially

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because they would ride up on bikes.

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As time went on, his front yard began to look like a bike graveyard.

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There were some bikes out there that had missing seats.

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There were some bikes out there that had missing wheels.

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But nonetheless, a bunch of bikes out in the front yard.

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It didn't take me long to understand that this is a dude selling drugs.

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A friend would come up, ride up on his bike, take it into the house.

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And a few minutes later, he would leave that house, not on the bike, but he would be walking

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with a backpack.

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Then a little while later, another dude would walk up with a backpack, go into the house,

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and then leave on a bike that was different than the one that the other dude just rode

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up and on.

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And we could see this going on each and every day.

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We had some friends come, a friend from college come visit us for a few days and they were

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staying in our house.

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Now the wife was smart.

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She was in the top of her class in high school.

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She graduated college early with honors.

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Even while she was still working to pay for it, she was book smart, but not street smart.

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She was naive.

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She was sheltered.

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She had the world view that everyone was good because that is what she had experienced

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for the most part in her life.

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She looked over there at this house and says, how cool is that?

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How cool is that?

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I remember doing that when I was a kid.

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Riding my bike over to my friend's house, leaving it in the front yard and then going

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inside and having a good time.

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Her view was shattered.

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When I told her, they weren't hanging out, playing PlayStation and drinking Kool-Aid.

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So what's the difference here?

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Jessica was an extremely smart kid when it comes to book learning.

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But growing up in a wealthy suburb of Abilene, Texas did not help her when it came to recognizing

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the real life situation around her.

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I've been around that since I was a kid.

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I grew up in El Paso.

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I'd seen drug deals go down in my middle school.

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They used to pass them around.

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You know those M&M things that you pop the top and there's like these little M&Ms?

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Those things are passed around with all kinds of sorts of stuff in it.

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I'd been around it.

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I had watched this guy for weeks on end the same routine over and over again, but the

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dude never left his house, never went to work.

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I'd not learned that from a book.

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I had learned it from actually experiencing the same type of thing earlier in my life.

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I had the street smarts, so to speak.

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When God tells us to open the eyes of our hearts, he's basically saying the book smarts

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are only a part of the equation when it comes to knowing him.

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Paul, right after praying for the spirit of wisdom and revelation to be given to all believers,

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adds that he hopes the eyes of our hearts would be enlightened as well.

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So what does he mean by this?

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Well how do most of us get our information about God?

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We learn about him by reading his word.

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We learn about his attributes.

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We learn about his nature.

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We learn about his character.

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By reading God's word, we can know a lot about God, but we cannot move beyond book smarts

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if we only know him through his word.

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We must also experience him.

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I want you to all pretend for a moment, some of you I hope this doesn't bring you joy,

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but I want us to all pretend for a moment that you're single for a few minutes.

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Now there's a whole bunch of websites out there where you can go to to find a person

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to date.

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Right?

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You can swipe right, I don't know, what direction do you swipe if it's good?

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I don't know.

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I don't, thankfully, I don't know.

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Let's say you go on one of those sites and you find several people you're interested

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in based on what has been written about them in their profile.

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How many of you would immediately go and marry the person who had the best written profile?

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Well, it depends on, you know, level of whatever, but I don't think any of us would.

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We still need to spend some time with that person to get to know who they are before

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we can truly decide that we love them.

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The same is true with God.

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We can't truly grow to love him just by reading his word.

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It should intrigue us to read about his miraculous love, his miraculous nature, but you can only

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fall in love with him by starting a relationship with him and having our own personal interaction

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with him.

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That's what we do when we open the eyes of our hearts.

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We move beyond seeing him only through our physical eyes by reading his word and learning

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about him through the Bible, and we see him for who he truly is.

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A loving God who wants to have a love relationship with us that moves beyond just head knowledge.

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It's much like music, right?

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Or a sunset or a delicious dinner.

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You can represent those things logically.

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You can represent those things analytically if you choose.

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A musical score, for instance, is the mathematical representation of music, but that's not experiencing

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music, is it?

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Looking at notes on a page doesn't thrill you by being surrounded by a full orchestra.

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I can pull a sheet of paper that has the words and the chords on it, but it doesn't have

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the same impact as the worship band... sorry, Paul.

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Sorry.

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It doesn't have the same effect, does it?

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Likewise, you can describe colors mathematically, but you must see color to really know what

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orange looks like.

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You can describe taste anatomically.

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You can describe the chemical reactions that occur when you bite into a lemon, but you

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will never experience the pungent, sour taste until you take a bite of it yourself.

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We can describe God theologically.

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We can list his attributes and describe his work in creation and redemption, but unless

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we experience God ourselves, we can never truly know him.

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Basically, Paul is saying that we need to really experience the Lord's presence.

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If you are hungry, what a picture of a big, juicy steak satisfy your hunger.

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Would the steak itself satisfy your hunger if you never took a bite?

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No, if we want to satisfy our hunger, we must eat the steak if we truly want to know what

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it is like.

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So if you are to hunger and thirst after God, it means we have to do more than just know

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about him.

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We must open the eyes of our hearts to see and know him more.

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What can we see when we do this?

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Let's look at our scripture this morning.

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The first thing we can see is we can see the hope, the hope to which he has called us.

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Have you ever become discouraged in your Christian walk?

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Have you ever questioned why you are even walking with God at times?

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Have you ever thought about giving up on God and just going a completely different direction?

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I think most of us at some point in our Christian journey have come to that point in our lives.

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Why is that?

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It's because the Christian life is tough.

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It's not an easy road at all times.

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Paul says in Romans chapter 5, he has this great teaching.

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It states in Romans chapter 5 verse 2, it says, through him we have also obtained access

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by faith into this grace in which we stand.

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And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.

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Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance.

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And endurance produces character.

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And character produces hope.

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And hope does not put us to shame because God's love has been poured into our hearts

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through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

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So we all want hope in our lives, don't we?

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Hope is a wonderful thing.

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In fact, Paul puts it in the top three next to faith and love that are the best things

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in the world.

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The problem is that we cannot just get hope.

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According to the Scriptures, we must go through suffering and we must go through perseverance

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and character building until we can get that hope.

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And to be honest with you, sometimes that hope can be a long road.

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The problem we see when we go through trials and hard times, we often only look at them

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through our physical eyes, what we can actually see.

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And when we do that, we cannot see past our current situation or our current circumstances.

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We can't see past those things going on in our lives.

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But what happens when we open the eyes of our hearts?

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Like I said earlier, opening the eyes of our hearts is the equivalent of experiencing God

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in a personal relationship.

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When we see Him in this way, we know that we have a loving God who's on our side.

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And He's looking out for our good.

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We remember what the Scripture says about going through tough times in order to get hope.

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We have trust and love built up for God that allows us to accept His plan no matter what

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it is because we know that He truly loves us.

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We have this hope.

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Second thing we see is we see the riches of His glorious inheritance.

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Have you ever tried telling somebody how wonderful a place is, how beautiful a place is?

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You've traveled around the world and you come back and you know, you've got to go here.

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This is fantastic.

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Can you pull out the photo album?

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I mean, it's almost impossible, right?

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A picture never does it justice.

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I saw so many pictures and movies about the Grand Canyon and heard the stories of all

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those who had been there before, but they did not do it justice to actually going there

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and seeing it firsthand.

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The same is true of heaven.

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We will never know how glorious it is until we experience it ourselves.

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We will not get to do that until we die and go there though.

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However, when we live in a way, when we live in a way we are meant to by having a relationship

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with Jesus, we can begin to get a glimpse of what heaven might be like.

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I often hear about the streets of gold and the mansions, but what is going to be the

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best part of heaven?

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It's going to be that we are in the presence of God.

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We're in His place.

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So if we open our hearts and our eyes to see Him in His glory here on earth, we're going

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to unlock a little bit about what God has promised us in the end.

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And when we begin to see how great our inheritance is going to be, we'll do a couple things.

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We will want to strive to please God all the more because we will want to experience that

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when we get there.

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And we'll want to tell everyone how great it's going to be.

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That will cause us to witness like never before.

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When we have the eyes of our hearts enlightened, we'll be the best witnesses on the face of

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the earth.

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When we have the eyes of our hearts enlightened, we'll see, begin to see sin for what it really

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is, trying to rob us of the presence of God.

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When the church acts like the true church, it will be a little slice of heaven.

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We will experience true friendship and brotherhood for the first time.

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We will experience joy as never before in doing His work.

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We'll get to know Him more and more every single day.

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And in so doing, we will begin to see through our spiritual eyes the glory that is heaven.

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But we have to open our hearts.

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Our hearts have to be enlightened for us to truly experience it.

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The third thing is we will see His incomparable great power.

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Do you have a lack of the power of God in your life?

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Why are we so weak in our faith that we don't see the miraculous wonders and signs that

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the disciples performed?

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God had promised that we could do even greater things once the Holy Spirit came.

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Timothy tells us that God did not give us a spirit of fear or timidity, but a spirit

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of love and power and self-discipline.

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So why are we so weak and timid?

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Because we're only using our regular eyes.

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We put a lot of stock in our eyes, right?

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After all, if something happens and it's out of the ordinary, our favorite phrase is,

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I'll believe it when I see it.

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I'll believe it when I see it for myself.

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For too long, we have gone without seeing God do the miraculous.

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So we have a doubt that He can even happen.

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Sure we read about it happening, but a lot of us are like Thomas.

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We want proof.

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We want to see it for ourselves in order to truly believe what's happening here.

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And because we haven't seen it happen, because we haven't experienced it, we believe that

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it's never going to happen.

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We have to open up our other eyes.

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Too many of us in the church are only seen through our physical eyes.

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As we spend intimate time with God, He will begin to reveal more and more about Himself

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to us.

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We'll be tuned into His plan, and we will begin to see where He is working and what

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He is doing in the world around us.

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With our own eyes, we can only see what is in front of us.

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And then we have to kind of guess where God is working.

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When we open the eyes of our hearts, He shows us where He is working, and we can go there.

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And where God is working, there are miracles.

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Where God is working, there is power.

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So, when we go there, we will experience those things as well.

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Our physical eyes cannot see God's plan and God's will.

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Only our spiritual eyes can do that.

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So if we want to see His incomparable, great power, we must spend time with Him so that

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He can reveal to us where He is at work, and we can go with Him there.

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So the question is, how do we take the red pill?

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How do we move past?

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Just let me get the blue pill and get this over with.

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How do we take the red pill?

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So do you want to see more?

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Do you want to see more?

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Do you want the red pill, or are you satisfied with the blue pill?

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Do you want to see more than what your physical eyes can see, or are you satisfied with the

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way things are?

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If you want more, you have to ask.

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If you want more, you have to ask.

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Paul talks about having the eyes of our hearts enlightened, he's doing it in a prayer.

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He states, I keep asking that God, the glorious Father, may give.

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Only God can open these eyes.

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He's the only one.

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We can't do it on our own.

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Think about Saul's conversion.

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He was persecuting Christians, and then on the road to Damascus, his physical eyes were

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taken from him.

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But after an encounter with the Lord, his physical sight was restored, and he was given new spiritual

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sight as well.

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So if you want to see far beyond what your eyes can see, you have to ask from God until

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he grants it.

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And in the meantime, we have to continue to get to know him better.

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But only part of this comes through reading the Word.

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The rest comes from you entering into a personal relationship with him in order to experience

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him.

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After taking the red pill, Neo turns to Morpheus and asks, why do my eyes hurt?

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Why do my eyes hurt?

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Morpheus responds, it's because you've never used them before.

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Sadly, I think many of us in this room are guilty of the same thing.

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We take in all the sights with our physical eyes, and we neglect to use the eyes of our

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heart.

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And because of that, we're missing out on the bigger picture that God wants us to see.

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I love this quote by Alfred Whitehead.

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He commented, a merely well-informed man.

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A merely well-informed man is the most useless, poor on God's earth.

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We need more than intellectual understanding.

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We need to really see.

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We need to see the hope in which he has called us.

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We need to see the riches of his glorious inheritance.

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We need to see his incomparable great power.

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We need to step out in faith.

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We need to take the red pill, and we need to get to know God in a more intimate way than

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we ever have before.

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Will you do that this morning?

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You know, some of us in this room are, that scares us, right?

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We don't want the Holy Spirit breaking out too much in here.

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We don't want a lot of dancing going on.

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We're bad.

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We need to see far beyond the physical world.

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We need to experience God.

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And so I'm going to ask us to spend some time this morning just praying, asking God to give

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us these things.

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God help us see the world around us like you see it.

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God help us see the world so that we can go and be a part of what you're actually doing.

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Help us see my workplace like you do so that I can go be a part of the work that you're

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doing.

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Help me see my family the way that you do so that I can continue to do the work that you're

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doing so I can be a part of it.

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Because I know what my inheritance is.

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I know what you're capable of.

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The same power that raised him from the dead is available to us.

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And we're like, I'm good.

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I'm good with where I am.

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I'm good with seeing what I can see.

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You understand the same power that raised him from the dead is available to you?

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And we don't want more of that.

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We don't want to experience more of that.

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I do.

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And so sometimes I have to come along somebody that's experienced it and he cannot walk with

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me through it.

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Because I grew up old school Baptist we don't touch the spirit.

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We don't touch them because somebody might break out in a weird language that we don't

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understand.

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Somebody might be speaking into my life that they shouldn't know about.

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I want more of him in this place.

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Right?

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I want to experience more of him in this place.

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How many of us have sang that song open the eyes of my heart, right?

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That I may see you.

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How many of us have said that song, sang that song and didn't mean a word of it?

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Open the eyes of my heart that I may see.

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What song did we sing earlier?

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Give me a glimpse, right?

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Give me a glimpse of the greater things that you're doing.

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Was that the right words?

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I don't know.

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Close enough.

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Close enough.

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And so I'm going to ask the worship team to come lead us in song.

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And as we respond I want you to plead with God.

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Let me see more.

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Ask Him for it and don't stop asking Him for it.

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Why can't we be like Paul in that?

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I am never going to stop asking the Lord for the church at Cornerstone to understand the

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revelation and the wisdom and the inside.

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I'm never going to stop praying that the people of Cornerstone will have their hearts enlightened

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so that they can see God move.

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And so I don't know how you need to respond.

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Maybe you need to come right up here and just start pleading with the Lord for them.

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Maybe you need to grab somebody and say, this is what I feel like the Lord's doing.

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Help me discern.

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Is this the Lord's voice or is this mine?

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Right?

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There's some great people in this church that can help you discern that.

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Let's experience the Lord together.

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I'm going to ask the prayer team, if you're available, if you're willing, to come up front

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and let's just pray for people to experience the goodness of the Lord.

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I'll sit right here in the front row, the awkward row, where nobody wants to sit in

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the front row.

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I'm going to sit right there.

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And if I can pray with you, if I can encourage you, then get your butt out of your seat.

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Did I say that?

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Yeah.

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That's not a bad word.

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And let's take some steps of faith this morning.

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Can we do that?

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Let me pray for us.

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Father God, I pray.

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I pray right now that your Holy Spirit would fall in this room and you would speak.

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I pray God that you will open the eyes of every single person's heart in this place this morning.

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Help us not be weirded out when miracles start breaking free.

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Help us not be weirded out when the Holy Spirit moves in power.

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Help us be a church that sees not just with our physical eyes, but with our spiritual eyes

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as well.

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I pray God that you move in this place.

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It's in your name we pray.

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Amen.