Good morning.
Now you can you can applaud you can clap it's all for the Lord right.
We're going to be talking about that, maybe a little bit later in today's study but the, the names of God are powerful. Right.
I mean in and through them there is glory and majesty anyway getting ahead of myself, but surely when you when you watch something like that and you get through it and we should be just kind of overwhelmed and undone by how great.
How great the Lord is.
Well welcome. It is Sunday and it is a day of celebration as the body of Christ comes we gather together whether you're here in this in the building or whether you're joining us online we are the body of Christ we are coming together to prove one purpose,
and that is to worship the Lord and one accord to sit at his feet to hear his voice be filled by the spirit and be changed and transformed.
It's a lot going on on Sundays right, and we are glad to be here. Amen. Amen.
So, welcome to all of you if this is your first time here in the building or if you're joining us online for the very first time. Welcome in the name of the Lord, it is our joy as your brothers and sisters to gather together with you and sit at the Lord's feet.
So, today, you know Pastor Nathan, obviously, he's not in the building.
He tours the latter part of the week he started to to get a little ill, you know, and it's it's when you get sick nowadays it's like you have no idea what it is.
Right, so he was dealing with sore throats and, and just, just really, really bad headaches and, you know, all that congestion stuff so he not coded.
So, that's good. Good with that.
But just just kind of not able to function as he would so.
So that's why I'm here. So, sorry.
We have to, we have to delay getting back to the book of Revelation, but I'm hoping that this morning, what the Lord has for us to partake of together touches your heart, and that we leave here different than how we came in, we leave your closer to the Lord.
My study today it has some of you who are older, you'll understand those of you who are not as old won't but the title of my study this morning is who's on first what's on second.
So I'm hoping all of you that's, you know what I'm talking about right. For those of you who don't know that it relates to a comedy bit done by Abbott and Costello from a long time when there was television and that television only was black and white.
But it's this bit where they're going around they're talking about baseball and, and, of course, it's it's comical because the names of the players are who what, I don't know, and whatnot right but the Costello doesn't know that, or, yeah, Costello doesn't know that so when
he asked who's on when when habits, tells him that who was on first he's like I don't know. Right. But the name of the guy is who anyway, a lot of confusion comedy ensues and, and you know it's a it's a really funny bit.
But it actually, I'll get to it during the study, but it does have a meaning for us beyond just the comedy right. It's like, it's a simple and a basic question for Christian, and that is who's on first.
It's no there's really no mystery to it, and, or at least the question as, as we would expect to hear it. And that is, who should be on first right.
Jesus himself he answered that for us. If you turn to Mark, the book of Mark, chapter 12 in Mark chapter 12. In this particular part of scripture Jesus is speaking to one of the scribes, right, he's been answering questions from the Pharisees from the
Sadducees. This one scribe comes up and he talks to him, because he recognizes that Jesus has great understanding by the answers that he's been giving the religious leaders. If you go to verse 28, the heart of what we're going to talk about is
30 but we'll back it up to verse 28 that way you get kind of the scene, a bit more so in verse 28 it says, one of the scribes came up, and he heard them arguing, and he and recognizing that he, Jesus had answered them well, he asked him,
Jesus, what commandment is the foremost of all. Verse 29 Jesus says, and he answered, the foremost is, hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Verse 30, and you should love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.
So, who should be on first? The Lord our God. It is so simple, so clear, and so well that's all I have for you today, God bless you, we'll see you next week.
The applause roared, right? Nah, there's so much more there but yes, that is the answer. Jesus makes it so clear. There's no hidden meaning here. We've talked about the parables of Jesus before, you know, and there's always something to dig into in the parables to find out what it is that he's talking about, what that application is for us.
But none of that's here. It stands on its own and it's plain and simple. And that's with intent. There is to be no guessing in what is the greatest commandment to love the Lord your God with all your heart, your soul, your mind, and your strength.
You know, I have this painting that I got many years ago and, oh boy, didn't think that through. So, I think it's on the screen, or will be on the screen, but in this painting, and if you don't, yeah, there it is.
So, in this painting, it is a picture of the crucifixion, right? What's interesting about this painting, it was done by a gentleman named Aidan Meller. He's a local artist.
What's interesting about this is that he chose to do the crucifixion screen, and in it, the people here, he actually used the faces of people in his church congregation, right?
So, the people who are pointing at Jesus, yelling, the people who are crying, they're all people within his own congregation, right?
And there's a purpose for that, but that's not what I want to talk about. What I want to talk about is here, and that is the face of Jesus, right?
In this picture, Jesus is what? He's looking back. Who's he looking back at? Yeah, you, the one who's viewing it. You know, to me, in and of itself, powerful painting when you consider that, right?
That while he was on the cross, he was focused on you, but in another way, when we talk about him being so clear and direct in the first commandment,
you know, don't you just feel the Lord doing a similar thing, right? And he's talking to the scribe, and he's telling him this, and he's telling him about how you're to love the Lord your God.
And I can almost see him doing that whole fourth wall thing, right? Looking back at me as I'm reading it, and he's reaching back through time and space, and he's telling me what the command is, what the objective is, what the goal is here, right?
Reaching out to us today, his word is alive, and when he speaks and when he spoke, he speaks to us. And so we take that, right?
The command that the Lord gave is the cornerstone to Christian living, and it's so simple and so plain, and yet we all battle with making this a reality in our lives.
And the result of having to battle and fight is that we stop living our calling as an image bearer of God.
And we begin to be consumed by the cares of this life as if they were more than just the blip in time that they are.
They consume us, our eyes, not on God.
They're on all the things.
We become partakers of a confused life, forever moving in a meaningless circle, just like two comedians arguing over gibberish.
But as with all things in this Christian life, God is so merciful, so kind, and so loving that he not only supplies the answer, but he also gives us the weapons for our warfare.
And in learning how to live the greatest commandment to fully love the Lord, our God this morning will be looking at the tool that he has provided to do that.
So let's come together.
Let's prepare our hearts as we worship at his feet, together as the body of Christ, eyes focused on him.
So let's pray.
Father, we thank you for this morning.
We thank you that you are here.
You've promised that where two or more are gathered in your name, your Spirit is here as well.
We ask that your Spirit would fill us to overflowing, that you would reach out, God, across this globe as people are joining us online and you would fill them with the Spirit of God, just as you are filling us with the Spirit of God.
So that as we enter into a time of worship together, everything else in this life will dim, and you will become the focus.
Lord, we ask that we would be close to you, our thoughts would be of you, our hearts would be in tune to you, that as we proclaim your goodness and your greatness, as we speak the burdens of our heart and speak the joys of our heart as we speak, Lord, your greatness.
In and through our worship this morning, that you would be glorified.
Lord, please do that work within your people. Give us a hunger for that so that it's not ever a question as to whether or not we are going to be gathering together.
It's a question of when and how often.
Lord, we thank you for you are in this place.
Lord, be glorified.
And it's in Jesus name we pray.
Amen.
For those of you who don't know, my name is Ron Love. I'm an elder here at Hosanna Christian Fellowship.
It is my joy to be with you this morning as we open up the Lord's Word and as we focus in, as I said on Mark 12, verse 30.
Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength, and we're excited to see what God has provided as the weapons of our warfare.
Amen.
To see how we can accomplish that.
So just again.
So it becomes fixed in your mind.
Let's read Mark 12, 30 one more time.
This time though I want to go and I want to read the translation in a version called the Amplified Bible.
The Amplified Bible if you don't know, it's a good for me it's a good secondary translation I like to go to because what it does is it tries to pick up on the nuances of certain words.
So it'll put a lot of things in parentheses, you know, showing that this word not only means son, but it also means X and it'll just incorporate it in the reading of it.
So sometimes it really can add to your understanding what it is and and it kind of does this in in Mark 12, verse 30.
So in the Amplified Bible, it reads, and you shall love the Lord your God out of and with all your whole heart and out of and with all your soul, your life.
And out of and with all your mind with your faculty of thought and your moral understanding and out of and with all your strength.
This is the first and principal commandment.
Now that kind of leaves no room for maneuvering.
Right. All means all.
Right.
There's no debate there.
And, and because it's so absolute there, it kind of sounds impossible for us humans because when we try to do the the highest thing, man, we have so much frailty we have so much sin in our life that gets in the way.
And it is very difficult, very hard to to attain that perfect level.
And it may seem impossible to you.
It would seem impossible to you if you think that loving the Lord your God with all is like flipping on a switch.
It is not.
That is not possible for us, and God in his graciousness and his love totally knows that he knows who we are.
He created us.
Right.
And so it's not going to be like flipping on a switch.
Just like everything has been in your Christian walk.
Things are done over time.
Lessons are learned.
One precept is upon another precept.
And you will learn to get there.
That's how that's sanctification.
That's how we're going to spend this life here on Earth is learning these things.
It is learned and is built on day by day, moment by moment.
And trust me, it is just like a muscle, a muscle that you want to develop.
Right.
You have to exercise it.
If you don't exercise it, no change.
You don't grow.
The question of whether or not we love the Lord our God for for many Christians, you know, it may seem like this topic today is kind of a waste of time.
Right.
It's like, of course, we love God.
We're here.
We sang the songs.
We gave our offerings unto God.
We're studying his word.
And all those actions are great.
And they're good.
And they're healthy.
And they're necessary.
But many times.
Many times these actions can be born out of feelings of obligation or an attempt to repay God.
You know, we're we're interesting creatures as humans.
Right.
We don't like chains.
We don't like owing something.
And so with many areas of our life, when somebody has done something for us, we kind of want to balance the scales.
And we want to get that obligation off off the books, so to speak.
Right.
And so we do things or we repay things thinking that that'll even things out.
Right.
But we're talking about something that's eternal, something that you could never pay for.
And that is your forgiveness of sin, your salvation.
We cannot balance the scales.
So doing these things out of that kind of obligation, it doesn't work.
And if that's our our only motivation, these things that we do, these good things that we do in and of themselves, that is not loving God wholly and completely.
They should be an outgrowth of a greater relationship with God, but they are not the relationship with God.
The debt of sin, death, can't be paid for through good works and righteous deeds.
But doing good certainly can be evidence of a transformed life.
But by themselves, nothing.
They are nothing.
No, what God paid through the gift of his son's life upon the cross is not your service.
God pay, give up his life for you so that you can be his servant.
But what was done was he created an opening of a door of salvation and communion with him for his creation.
And then this new life, this journey of learning to love God wholly and completely by partaking of the precious gift that he's given to us to do that.
As I said, it is a weapon of warfare.
That gift that God has given us is prayer.
Prayer is communion with God.
Getting ahead of myself, right?
Let me back up just a little bit.
What is prayer?
When I say prayer, what does that mean, right?
Well, in its simplest form and definition, this is what prayer means.
Prayer is a wish directed toward.
That is the simplest definition of prayer.
If we were to then take that simple definition, that universal definition, and apply it to us, it could be prayer is a wish directed toward God.
Right?
And when we first come to God, that's exactly what we do.
That is exactly what we cry out to the Lord.
Oh, God, forgive and save me.
If that isn't a wish of a repentant heart, I don't know what is.
Right?
That is our first, first communication with God through that open door that he's created.
It is that crying out for salvation and forgiveness.
That is the first cry.
And that cry unlocks a world of relationship with God.
Sadly, many stay right there.
They treat prayer as dial a wish and God as a magician.
Right?
Some analogies say that we treat God as the divine butler.
Right?
God, I need help with my car.
God, I need a new job.
God, I really would like to win the lottery.
God, I want, I need.
God, bring me.
Right?
And we think that that's the relationship that we have with God.
We think that that's what prayer is.
We tell God all the stuff that we need and want.
And yeah, sometimes if we don't grow, that's where we stay.
But that is not what God has intended.
That's not why he created this door.
It's just the first call, crying out in need.
It is in that first call that we are to recognize our act of surrender and his gracious love in hearing and supplying our need for salvation.
And it's on that foundation that he is providing that we're to build a house upon.
Turn with me to Psalm 25.
Psalm 25, Psalm of David.
It's a verse that many of us know very readily.
In fact, you know, years ago in the early days of the Calvary movement, in the choruses that we used to sing, you would recognize this song.
Psalm 25, verse 1.
David describes this encounter of prayer, of speaking with God like this.
Unto thee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul.
Unto thee, unto you, God.
I lift up my soul.
If you just stop and you just think about it, what a beautiful moment that is when prayer becomes a lifting up of my soul towards God to him to see, to see me in all my frailty, in all my humanness.
And asking for God to place his holiness upon my life, upon my soul, and to do a work with us.
All according to his power and his will.
I don't hold anything back.
That's the essence of what David is saying when he's saying, I lift up my soul.
It's without condition.
It's without pretense.
It is without putting on lipstick like you put lipstick on a pig, right?
It's just saying, God, here I am.
This is me.
Let your holiness be upon me.
See me and do what you need to do.
It's true that we're to bring our partitions to God.
I'm not saying that, you know, once you move forward in prayer, well, don't bring those things to God.
Don't ask for those things.
That's not what I'm saying.
Because we know that God delights in being his children's provision.
He tells us to bring these things to him.
If you go to Psalm 55, Psalm 55 verse 22.
You know this verse well, many of you as well.
In the Amplified Bible, it says it this way.
It says, verse 22, cast your burden on the Lord, releasing the weight of it, and he will sustain you.
He will never allow the consistently righteous to be moved, made to slip, fail, or fall.
Cast your burden on the Lord.
Release the weight of it.
Speak it.
Bring it to him.
Lay down the weight of it.
That's what we do or should do when we come to God.
And we are telling him about those burdens and those true needs and things that we are experiencing or afflicted with or we need.
We're taking them to God.
We're lifting up our soul to him along with all those burdens and all those needs and all those things.
And we're just saying, God, this is me.
This is me right now.
I give it over to you.
That weight of it, I am laying down before you.
I am casting my care upon you, for you care for me.
That's perfect.
Not the same as saying, God, I need a million dollars.
Right?
That just exposes the covetousness of my heart.
Right?
But when I say, God, I have a true need, and I'm going to lay that down before you.
Do you see how that honors him?
Do you see how that puts him in the position of doing something about that?
It's not just complaining.
It's saying, God, here it is.
I don't know what to do.
And I don't want to carry this anymore.
And you being God, I'm going to give it to you.
That's how we should be bringing positions or our petitions to the Lord.
But we don't bring petitions to the Lord, and we don't speak to him in certain ways to make prayer.
The point of prayer being how to get things or how to persuade God to do something or how to bend him to my will.
That's not the communication God purchased.
Right?
Again, prayer is the lifting up, the exposing of our souls to him.
It is coming to him honestly, and that includes honestly naming our burdens, our cares, and our needs.
You're speaking with him.
You're interacting with him openly and intimately.
There's a book that was written many, many years ago called The Kneeling Christian.
The author is anonymous. Nobody knows who wrote this book.
But The Kneeling Christian, if you have not read it or experienced it, I highly recommend it.
You go find it. You can get it for free.
If you just do a search online, you can download it.
The essence of the book is really all about prayer and our position within prayer and God's position within prayer.
And yes, there are things that the author says that I might not totally agree with.
But they're the small things. They're just the very minute specific things.
Overall, it is a powerful and life-changing book.
I did a class at our school of, I forget what we called it, our training school here at Hosanna like 10 years ago or something.
And we went through a good portion of that book.
And because we were talking about the gifts, we were talking about worship,
and we were talking and getting to the point where prayer was an aspect of worship and how it affects everything.
So if you haven't read that book, I would highly suggest go find it, The Kneeling Christian.
But today I just want to highlight this one section and read the quote to you.
And The Kneeling Christian puts it this way, quote,
We get to know people by talking with them.
We get to know God in a like manner.
The highest result of prayer is not deliverance from evil or the securing of some coveted thing, but knowledge of God.
John 17, 3 says, And this is eternal life that they would know thee.
That's Jesus speaking. And this is eternal life that they would know thee.
Yes, prayer discovers more of God, and that is the soul's greatest discovery.
And end quote.
So who is God?
Who is this person that we're speaking with?
Why are we speaking with God?
I think we all understand that in order to grow in our relationship with God,
we have we have to move beyond using prayer as simply a vehicle to ask for things.
It's not the extent of the communication with him.
But how do we do that?
Well, there's two things, two things that we really should do.
The first is we need to have a realization of God's glory.
And two, we need to have a realization of God's grace.
Now, I'm just going to pause there for a second, right?
Because you may you may answer back to me.
Well, we know what God's glory is and we know what his grace is.
Right. But that's not the word I used.
I didn't say we need to know it.
We know a lot of things.
What I said was we need a realization of his glory and we need a realization of his grace.
That is something much deeper than just knowing it.
And it's it's an action that we don't readily allow ourselves to do.
And the reason why we don't allow ourselves to take in and truly realize the depth, the height, the length, the width of something is because when we do that, there are consequences.
The consequences is that now you have deeper knowledge and you're going to need to do something with it.
And we know that.
And so we keep it at arm's length.
Right.
We don't necessarily always want those obligations.
Because we know we are going to have to do something with it.
That's a selfish thing within us.
That is, it is often something that leads to to sin, because if we don't have a knowledge and a realization of these two things, God's glory and God's grace, we will not know who he is.
And if you do not know who he is, how can you speak to him?
How can you know him?
How can you be his?
But if we know our whole lives will transform.
And so often we hold back.
We got to get beyond the holding back.
And we got to give it all up to him.
So I'm going to share with you one practical way.
Practical way of learning how to do these two things.
How to come to a greater realization and knowledge of his glory and a greater realization and knowledge of his grace.
And it's really simple.
And it really starts off at the ground level of prayer.
And it's to begin by praying the names of God with thanksgiving.
So we started the service this morning with that countdown video.
Right.
And that countdown video, what did it show?
If you were here, what it showed was his names.
Right.
That's all it showed.
Just his names listed one after another.
And I don't know about you, but certainly for me when I have something like that running in front of me, my mind is not content just to let it run.
It starts thinking about what that name actually means.
And then it starts thinking about how it applied to me.
Right.
When I say that, when I read that he is the Lamb of God, one of God's names is the Lamb of God.
Jesus is the Lamb of God.
I immediately start thinking, well, what did that mean?
And that brings to mind the fact that he was our sacrifice and he stood in our place.
What does it mean that he was our sacrifice?
It means that he was beaten.
He was bruised.
He was made bloody.
He suffered for us because we deserved it and he didn't.
And what does that mean to me?
Same thing.
I did not have to suffer the cost of my sin.
He did it for me.
On top of that, I start thinking about who he is that did those things.
And who he is was the Prince of Peace.
He was the Almighty God.
He was the King of Glory.
There was nothing in him that was unrighteous.
He was perfect.
He is holy.
And then he came down to earth.
Grasp the gravity of that, right?
You are Lord God, King and Majesty of all, all powerful, and you debase yourself to be a man.
Think about that.
We are not in an equal position with God.
There is no measure of our difference between us and God.
Yes, God is here and this is the highest that you could go.
I cannot go low enough to describe the disparity between me and a holy and a righteous God.
And so what he gave up, coming down from glory to be on my level, is incomprehensible.
And when I stop and take that realization in, realizing all of the facets of what that means when I say he is the Lamb of God,
I am undone.
We should be undone.
So that's what I'm saying.
You can take something as simple as going, like that video, going through the names of God and let your heart, your soul,
your mind, and with all your fervent strength, meditate on those names.
And then as you meditate on all those names, just don't leave it on the level of, I am unworthy and I just, you know, this is incomprehensible.
But take the next step and give thanks to God because he didn't leave it there.
He has given you new life, forgiveness of sin, salvation.
Praise him in that prayer then.
Give thanks to him.
So try that.
Try that type of conversation with the Lord.
And I picked that one specifically because it takes your focus off of you and puts your focus on him.
If you're going, if you're thinking, well, okay, great.
Where do I get that?
I just tell you, it is the easiest thing to get.
Go online, type in names of God.
Whole list of the names God will show up.
Print it out and start incorporating that in your prayer conversation with God.
And then offer up thanksgiving as you go through each and every name.
The end result is that you will begin to know him.
You're speaking his names.
You're meditating and coming to realization of what each of those names means and how that incorporates into what he's done for you in your salvation.
What that could mean rolling forward in your future as you grow in him.
It puts him in the proper position of our thoughts and it causes you to give thanks in all of that.
You begin to realize all of his wondrous works, his glory.
And in giving thanks, you begin to realize that that is his grace at work in your life.
You know him.
You worship him through thanksgiving.
And out of that is born love.
Love for him.
You cannot love someone that you do not know.
I can't fulfill the greatest commission or the greatest commandment to love the Lord my God if I don't know who he is.
You have to know.
You have to come to those realizations.
This is one way you can do that.
One simple way.
And I challenge you.
Do this.
Begin this today.
And you will be transformed.
Over time as you keep doing this, our depth of understanding his greatness and his glory, his magnificence and his power will grow and grow as the Spirit gives you understanding.
As you spend time with him, so the Spirit is there.
And as the Spirit is there, he will reveal more and more of who he is to you that you might have greater realization, greater understanding.
And then the love that you've begun to have for God multiplies and becomes greater and greater and greater.
And then all doesn't become so distant, does it?
A couple of weeks ago as we've been going through the book of Revelation with Pastor Nathan, we were in Revelation chapter four, and that was the scene in heaven, you know, with the living creatures and the elders and all that before the throne of God.
You know, if you go to Revelation chapter four, verse eight, this is what we read.
It says in verse eight, the four living creatures, each one of them having six eyes are full of eyes around and within and day and night.
They do not cease to say, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God, the Almighty, who was and who is and who is to come.
You know, the thought behind that, as we as we look at that scene in heaven and as we we see, yes, they just they just keep saying that over and over and over and over again and will for all eternity.
The thought is, is that they do this without stopping because what happens is each time they look upon the Lord, they see a new aspect of his glory and grace.
And so they cry out and bow down.
Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was who is and who is to come.
And they worship.
And then they open up their eyes and they look back up to him.
And they see a new aspect of his glory, his grace, his majesty, his power.
And all they can do is cry out again.
Holy, holy, holy are you, O Lord.
This is how it should grow within us.
Each time that we come before the Lord.
Each time that we seek to have time with him in prayer.
Each time that we do something as simple as lift up his names and give thanks for them.
The work that's being done is the spirit gives us greater understanding.
And that's just like us. Now we see a new aspect of God, a realization of his grace and his glory.
And the result is, how can we do anything else but cry out, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty.
What happens when we see God's glory and grace?
If you go back to the book of Exodus in chapters 33 and 34, there is the story of Moses, obviously.
And in this portion of scripture in Exodus, this is where Moses asked for one thing of the Lord.
What Moses asked for is he says, Lord, show me.
I pray thee thy glory. Show me your glory.
And if you've read that portion of scripture before, you know what happened to him.
Is God answered his prayer to see his glory.
What he did is God took him, he put him in the cleft of a rock.
He put his hand between him and himself, between Moses and God.
And God said, I can't let you see my glory.
Basically, it would burn you up.
But I'm going to pass by and you're going to see the afterglow of my glory.
And so that's exactly what God did.
Put him in the cleft of the rock, shielded, shielded Moses.
He passed by and Moses was able to see that little bit, that little bit of God's glory.
And what happened? Something actually happened physically to Moses.
Moses was transformed just by that little glimpse of God's glory.
His face, it says, shone with the glory of God.
He became radiant, physically radiant by his glory.
And the same thing can happen to us.
I'm not saying that God is going to pass by like he did with Moses.
But what I'm saying is, is that we too, when we enter into realization of God's glory, will be transformed.
In 2 Corinthians, chapter 4, verse 5 and 6, Paul says this.
Verse 5, for we do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your bond servants on account of Jesus.
Verse 6, for God who said, quote, light shall shine out of darkness, end quote, is the one who is shown in our hearts to give light to the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.
We have come to know God's glory through his Son, his light put in our hearts.
And as we preach Christ, his light shines in the darkness.
As we come to know him more and more, his glory shines in and through us.
We become an image bearer of God to all.
We become transformed as we come to that greater and greater and greater realization of God's glory.
Because then that starts to shine in and through us.
It becomes evident, evident to anyone that you come across.
You know, we pray for that often, and we should.
What we pray for is God, let people see you in me.
If they see you in me, in what I do, what I say, they will know we are different.
They will know that there is something very, very different about us.
And we pray that even in that, we'll then be able to tell them what is different.
That is what happens.
And as you enter into a prayer life where you are coming to that greater realization of God,
where you are intentional in doing that, you will be transformed in that way.
And people will see it and respond to it.
Because you are now being his image bearer.
You are reflecting God.
And that becomes an everyday occurrence.
The more we grow in our prayer life, the more our hearts, our souls, our minds, and strength focuses on God.
We are transformed into a follower of Christ who knows and believes in who God is.
And we understand how glorious and wondrous He is.
When I say that we are transformed into a follower of Christ who knows and believes who God is,
I've said this before and I will say it again probably a million times while I'm alive.
And that is, if our lives truly reflected a belief, our belief, that we believe that God is who God says He is,
our lives would be radically different.
That's what we're talking about here.
And having that level of belief that He is who He says He is,
comes from having a greater and greater and greater realization of His glory and His grace.
And that's done through prayer.
And through prayer, you come to know Him.
And in knowing Him, you're able to love Him.
Do you see how all this comes together?
And it's no longer just about this conversation that we're having with God.
It's about growing in grace and growing in Him and our focus being aligned to Him, His purposes, His will,
because He is the majestic one, because He is the Savior of all, because He was the sacrifice,
because He is Almighty God, because He is Lord of lords and King of kings, because He is the Creator of all,
because He is Almighty, because He is God.
And I believe it.
The very core of my being, I believe it.
He is glorious.
He is wondrous.
We understand that the depths of His love and His grace, and because we understand who He is,
we understand better the true cost of our salvation and His desire and power to save us all.
How glorious is the Lord!
We put Him on first.
Before we have all this great and wonderful growth and news, there is the journey before.
Before coming and implementing all these things, I get it.
I'm there too.
I struggle.
I struggle with doing all of this, incorporating this into my daily life.
I have to continually remind myself to be intentional in my prayers and in my seeking of greater realization
and understanding of His glory and of His grace.
It's hard.
And as Christians, we can war with our flesh about who is on first all day long.
We allow our lives to get caught up in the daily struggles and desires of this life.
But we've been called out of this life, right?
Galatians 2.20.
Many of you know that by heart.
Galatians 2.20 says,
I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.
And the life which I now live, in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God,
who loved me and gave Himself up for me.
I have new life.
I have to keep reminding myself.
I'm battling a dead man, right?
He has no power except that which I give him.
I give myself power as a dead man.
That's dumb.
But we do it.
We struggle with it.
But we have to be intentional.
And we have to not give in to that because we've been crucified with Christ.
It's over.
It's done with.
He has called us to move on.
As I said, He has opened up this door now to have communion, communication,
to have direct dialogue with Him, to lift up my soul to Him,
and to be changed and transformed as I grow in a greater and greater and greater realization of His greatness,
His glory, and the greatness of His grace.
And I am brought to a point where I can do nothing except give thanks
because I believe that He is all those things that His names say He is.
I can't do anything else if I'm in that space and if I'm intentional.
And we have to be because it's what we're called to.
It takes a daily decision to change your focus,
to focus on the life that we're called to, a life in which we're glorifiers of God.
Prayer is the key to growing in that.
It's what comes after putting God first, growing in prayer.
It is what is second, and it's hard.
This world and the enemy claw for us.
They take the yearnings within our hearts, our burdens, our needs, our concerns,
and they lead us to look at them, to focus on them instead of listening to truth and surrendering it all to God.
We take our eyes off of Christ.
We no longer at that moment are speaking His names and the truth of each and every one of those names.
We're speaking about our cares, our burdens.
We're focused on them and the strength and power that they have.
We make a willful decision to put off our first love and to deny the one we should seek.
And for us who are called by His name, that has to change, and it can change today.
You've got to seize it. I have to seize it.
And then I've got to seize it every day because He is the all in all.
To those of you who may be in the room or joining us online and you haven't repented of your sin
and you haven't surrendered your life to God's mercy, His love, and the free gift of grace through Jesus shed blood,
I guarantee that you are struggling with all these things too.
The journey forward, it begins the same way for you that it began for those who have already been forgiven and received Christ.
Your first step is to acknowledge who God is, His greatness and His glory.
And then you have to realize that all the needs, all the pain, all the hurt, all your desires,
and the treasures of this world are not going to fill the true need of your heart.
The need that your heart is crying out for.
None of these things is what you seek.
I want to close with a spoken word video presentation.
Spoken word basically is poetry, right?
But I want to set this up for you because it incorporates some of the things that we've been talking about this morning.
What this particular poem does is that it's from the perspective of God, of Jesus.
And so when he says I in this poem, he is speaking as being God, right?
So understand that. He's not speaking of himself as a man. He's being God in this presentation.
And he begins this presentation of speaking of His greatness and His glory and who He is and what He's done.
That's like the first half of this poem.
And then the second half turns and he starts talking about us and he's talking about you in the poem.
The things that you're going through or have gone through, the pains that you have gone through or are going through.
Your weaknesses, your frailty.
Discussing what you perceive as your need.
The reason why I want to show it, it's I will admit, you know, I have weird
tastes and things that speak to me.
Those of you who know me really well, like Will, Will Henderson on the guitar, he's actually my assistant at Living Waters.
So he gets to hear about all my weird things, right?
Because he has to, because he works for me.
But as you get to know me, you kind of understand that, you know, I see a lot of myself and I see a lot of the things that people are going through in all kinds of different things.
It could be even just a piece of music and I kind of feel that, right?
I can feel the pain in a composition of music or whatever.
So the reason why I want to play this is because I really believe that God has something in particular specific in the video that will speak to individuals.
Both as those of you who have already gone through these things and you're on the other side with Christ now.
But those of you who are going through this and you are going through all this turmoil.
And you need to know that God understands.
So let's go ahead and play that.
I am the might before the sword, the tremors in the spear shaft.
I craft my ways from blazes of firestorms, absorb the failings of deadened ends to render the floors I dance upon.
I am the spaces between applause, the roars of hearts running through heaven's halls.
I breathe the thorns of light and silence, still the course of cosmic riots.
I am the glory of the giants Manaslu, Sagamatha, watchmen of the Asian plains.
They yield my name, made famous through the cries of albatross flocks, inflamed in Pacific fires.
I am dressed in the spray of Nevada jewels, clothed in the shadows of Sahara caves.
I am the light of lunar flames, fleshing the reins of Amazonia.
I paint the trains of Antarctic quests, release dominion to desert panthera.
I authorize the remains of Aztec and Inca that bloom through the visions of mountain tribes.
I ride the skylines, breathe the signs, ignite the paths of astronomy's eyes.
I am the unheard, heard in the storms that burn on my words.
I am the yearned for, I am the word.
I emerge deciduous from the wetlands of your cries, rise through the moments you wake.
I bring the dawns that shake the fevers from your remembrance.
I am here, I am imminent.
I am he who crosses the plains through which you strayed.
Discover the parts extinction seared, I dust away the dried remains of tears.
Drain the lakes of your regrets, I wet the wells, till the soil,
Persate the toil, quell the rages, sew the broken pages with my belief in you.
I bring the you you have never quite met.
I am the desire that keeps your pillow wet.
I am the heartbeat you seek when you chase after dreams.
In the reachings and sighs you are looking for me.
In the body touching body it is me you seek.
In the groans and the longings it is me you seek.
In the yearning dream, in the need to be seen.
In the love me, love me it is me you seek.
In the breath drop wonders, gasping hunger.
In the touch of a stranger that makes you feel younger.
In the books and the fables, in the this is me labels.
In the is this me, is this me.
In the hear me, hear me, say my name.
In the touch me, find me, need me, find me.
In the aching pain, in the love, the music, the beats, the taste.
In the heat and the need, and the need for embrace.
In the colour, the gaze, the meaning, the desire.
In the flame of the voice and the spirit of the fire.
When you cry for more, my name you weep.
I am he who waits for you to reach.
I reach for you and wait.
When you lie half broken and awake.
I am the watchman of your sleep.
I wait and wait till the shakings cease.
I am the truth they call release.
When the darkness flares and starts to speak.
I sculpt the shades of daybreak.
It is me you seek.
It is him you seek.
Put him first.
Come speak with him and know him through prayer and his word.
Glorify God and let his glory shine in and through you.
Grow in being his image bearer and a light to the world.
In this you will have greater and growing understanding of what it is to live a life fulfilling Mark 12-30.
Love the Lord your God with all your heart, your soul, your mind and strength.
If you keep him first, the rest follows.
Let's pray.
Father, we thank you for your word.
We thank you that you have given us the weapons of warfare.
To fight against the world and the enemy in diverting our focus away from you.
And we recognize God that that primary weapon that you've given us is the one that was given by you opening the door of salvation.
The forgiveness of the covering of our sin and that is communication with you.
Prayer.
Spending time with you, getting to know you, understanding more and more who you are.
Your glory, your grace, giving thanks unto you for it.
Learning to hear your voice being filled by the spirit as we continue to grow and do this more and more and more as we are drawn closer to you.
And as our love for you becomes complete until you come again.
God let that be our hearts desire.
Let us desire you more than anything.
God speak to us.
As we go from here Lord, let us take these seemingly easy steps that need intention and daily attention in order to fulfill them and start them.
Let us put these things into practice God so that you are the all in all.
And our desire is for you more than anything else.
Thank you Lord.
And it's in Jesus name we pray.
Amen.