Thank you.

Hey guys, this is Pastor Jeff, and we got a very special weekend.

Listen, I've mentioned numerous times that God is doing an amazing work among our young adults.

And I'm not just saying that.

If you were ever able to attend a Tuesday night when YA comes together, you're going to see dramatic music, you're going to see a moving of the Holy Spirit, you're going to see young adults who come expecting God to move.

They're not in a hurry.

The service will often go beyond two hours, sometimes two and a half, maybe three.

A lot of the service is preaching and worship, but it's also praying for one another.

It's decision time.

It's baptism.

I've got to tell you that I have never felt the move of the Spirit like this in any place or time of my ministry.

God is on the move here.

I know He's on the move in the weekend as well, but He's doing something special among the next generation.

There's no way I'm ever going to be able to explain it to you, so I want to take you there.

So this weekend, I have given the last installment of this message called Promises, or this series called Promises, based on the promises God gave Moses in the book of Exodus, which is a paradigm for the promises He's given us as the church.

I have preached and delivered that last installment to YA.

I want you to experience it as they experienced it.

In some small way this weekend, we're all coming together.

So open your Bibles, Exodus 32, Exodus 33.

Let's go.

When Robin and I left, my wife Robin and I left Zimbabwe and came back to Tennessee, we were waiting on a work permit to go and work in New Zealand.

We spent 10 years in New Zealand.

But it was a six-month period where we were unsure if we were going to be invited back into Zimbabwe or New Zealand.

We may not have a place to go.

I may not have a job.

And we lived in this little trailer out in the middle of basically a tobacco field.

And it was the best day of my life because...

All I did, it seemed like, is pray and beg God to show me the way forward.

As a matter of fact, it was a little trailer.

It was cold, didn't have great heating.

So I would go back in the bathroom and I would sit on the toilet with the lid closed and I would face out the window where the cows were and I would sit there and talk to God for what seemed to be like hours.

God and I got close.

In those six months, I felt so on fire for God because I knew God was going to deliver.

I knew God was going to show us the way forward and he did.

He gave us a permit to go into New Zealand.

We started a church and he just blessed the socks off of us.

And I told myself, God, this experience that I'm having with you right now in this toilet in the trailer, God, it will never fade.

I will always be with you.

But it did.

It always fades.

I found it so easy to go back into what we call idle mode.

Now, what's idle mode?

Idle mode is when you...

Start putting your hope and your trust and faith in something other than God.

And so suddenly, like you meet an attractive girl, and suddenly you want God to help you get the girl.

So you're not really pursuing God anymore for the sake of God.

You're pursuing God for the sake of getting the girl, right?

So you want the job.

So you're not really pursuing God anymore.

You're pursuing God and hope God will help you get your real idol, the thing you love the most, job, money, whatever it is.

So God is kind of a means to your end.

And you fall back into that idol worship where something is more important to you than God.

And when you do that, because God is not an enabler, you stop experiencing God.

You stop feeling God.

Even though you've been to the mountaintop and you've seen the glory of the Lord and you know how wonderful it is, even though you would never want to leave, over time, some of the most committed Christ followers, some of the people who've been on fire, worship, prayer, decision-making, baptism, everything.

And they say to themselves, I'll never walk away.

But they do.

They do.

Now in Exodus chapter 32 and 33, I think God includes this in the scripture to teach us something valuable because he's just brought the children of Israel to Mount Sinai and they've experienced so many miracles.

The greatest miracle was that God was in their presence.

Remember, God followed them with a big cloud, a pillar of cloud in the day and a pillar of fire by night.

So the presence of God, in fact, it's referred to as the Shekinah glory of God.

It's in their presence.

Do you understand what this means?

It means that Moses and the Israelites were hanging out with God like you and I hang out with our friends.

God is always in the camp.

He's always here.

And when God shows up, all kinds of good stuff starts happening.

Things are going well.

They weren't caught up in the third heaven like Paul.

The third heaven came down to them.

God came to them and was in their midst, and they could feel the presence of God.

And they were as happy and joyful as they had ever been.

And then after years of this, I mean, we're not even talking about the Red Sea yet.

God opened the Red Sea for them.

I mean, when I saw the movie, the old movie, with Charlton Heston opening up the Red Sea, I mean, you don't forget that.

But they were there.

that they experienced God holding back the waters and then Pharaoh's army chasing them.

The waters pour over them and they'll never hear from Pharaoh's army again.

They've been with God in ways that you and I have never been with God.

But then they arrive at Mount Sinai and God tells Moses to go up on the mountain because he's going to give him the 10 commandments because he wants to produce shalom among the people.

He wants them to understand that if you want to live a great life, live within these parameters and you will flourish.

Moses goes up to the mountain.

He's up there a long time.

And suddenly the mountain starts shaking and trembling and smoking.

There's clouds, there's thunder, lightning, darkness.

So the people say, where's Moses?

He must be dead.

That's what they say.

So after experiencing God, like no one before them had experienced, what do they do?

Even after seeing the Red Sea, the Shekinah glory of God, the pillar of cloud day, the pillar of fire by night, after all of that, Here's what they do in Exodus 32, verse one.

When the people saw that Moses was so long and coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and said, come make us gods who will go before us.

As for this fellow Moses who brought us out of Egypt, we don't know what has happened to him.

Aaron answered them, take off the gold earrings that your wives, your sons, and your daughters are wearing and bring them to me.

So all the people took off their earrings and brought them to Aaron.

He took what they handed him.

Made it into an idol, cast in the shape of a calf, fashioned it with a tool.

Then they said, these are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.

Can you believe that?

These are the gods, this golden calf?

This is the God who brought you up out of Egypt?

This is one of the clearest examples we have in the Bible of spiritual digression.

They had been with God like no one else before them.

They loved God.

They loved experiencing God.

They had great joy when God is around.

They were on fire for God and boom, just like that, they walked away.

How does God respond?

Okay, chapter 33 now, verse one through five.

Then the Lord said to Moses, leave this place, you and the people you brought up out of Egypt and go up to the land I promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying, I will give it to your descendants.

I will send an angel before you and drive out the Canaanites, Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites.

Go up to the land flowing with milk and honey.

But I will not go with you because you are a stiff-necked people and I might destroy you on the way.

When the people heard these distressing words, they began to mourn and no one put on any ornaments.

For the Lord had said to Moses, tell the Israelites you are a stiff-necked people.

If I were to go with you even for a moment, I might destroy you.

Now, please hear me on this.

I can't go back.

I just can't.

Our church is in revival and it has been for a few years now.

What does that mean?

What does a revival mean?

Revival is when you have a conscience experience of the presence of God in your life.

You just know he is in this place.

It's when you sense his love and his mercy and his grace, his voice, his power in ways not previously experienced.

It's when the Shekinah glory of God is all over you.

When I have friends come to town to visit me, even if I can't come because I've got a previous engagement, they come because they've heard about this and they want to be here.

Because when God shows up, people want to be around.

But I want you to make no mistake.

This began years ago when a group of people on a Monday night, adults started praying for this to happen.

A group of people got together and they started praying.

We'd packed this place on a Monday night and we started praying things like, God, make yourself known.

to this generation.

Whisper in their ears, reveal yourself to them, overwhelm them with your presence.

Make your presence undeniable to them.

Those are the kinds of prayers we were praying month after month, year after year.

And now here we are.

Look at this.

This is God.

Now, here's the problem.

If Israel experiencing God the way they did, became so spiritually cold, just like that, what makes me think I want and what makes you think you want?

They became spiritually freezing cold.

How is it possible to hang out with God in the Shekinah glory of God, the presence and joy of God, you go from that to where God says, I can't walk with you because I might kill you.

I mean, that's an immense deviation.

Listen, please listen to the old guy.

No matter how strong your relationship is with God, no matter how hot you are right now, you can go call so fast.

Every single person, no matter what age in this room, has a tendency to deteriorate spiritually.

And if you look at this story in the Israelites and you say, man, those guys were idiots.

Had I been with God like that?

I mean, how could they possibly do that after the Red Sea crossing?

How could they go from spiritual warmth and on fire to spiritually cold just like that?

If you feel superior to the Israelites, then you don't know your own heart or you're not a Christian yet.

Because if you're not a Christian, you've never experienced God like that, so you wouldn't miss him if he went away.

Or you're a young Christian, so you're on fire right now.

And I'm trying to tell you what's coming.

Because real Christians have found themselves in this place often, where they were on fire, then they get real cold, real fast.

And they even promise God, I'll never doubt you again.

I'll never stray again.

I'll never do that sin again.

Never, God, you got my heart.

Sometimes you feel so close to God that you can't imagine.

You think it's impossible to go cold.

In Tennessee, where I grew up, we have the Smoky Mountains.

We go up there in the summer to build fires.

Very difficult to build a fire because...

It's so wet up there and the wood is so green.

So you gotta keep putting kindling, keep putting kindling even to warm up the wood before you start a fire.

But once you get the fire going, you know, it burns slowly, but never big, but slowly and it keeps you warm.

Now, have you ever tried to start a fire in Palm Springs?

I did that once.

When the fire truck showed up, I realized you can't do that in California.

You're not supposed to do that.

Nobody told me that.

I'm from Tennessee.

I thought you can build a fire.

But man, when you build a fire in Palm Springs, the wood is dry.

You set that on fire, man, it goes up like somebody poured gasoline on it, and it just shoots up in the sky.

The problem is when it shoots up in the sky, you might think, wow, this is a great fire.

I'm going to go over here for a few moments, get some hot dogs, maybe some marshmallows, and I'll come back.

But the problem is when it burns so hot so fast, if you don't tend to it, it'll die just like that, and you got to start over.

Now listen.

Your relationship to God is more like the Palm Springs would than the Tennessee would.

And if you don't constantly attend to it, it'll go out.

It'll go out.

You have to constantly feed the fire.

Now, do you know what, how many of you know what entropy is?

Entropy as defined is the natural tendency of things to move into disorder and chaos.

And when people first become Christians, but I've seen this 40 years of ministry.

They have no idea how deep the spiritual entropy is in their hearts.

They have no idea how fast their fire and passion for God can burn down.

And that the moment you leave it untended, it immediately begins to decay.

There's another hymn writer, his name is William Cowper.

He also came a couple hundred years ago.

They actually never put these words to a hymn.

And I'm not sure why, because he was responsible for a lot of the old Christian hymns.

But I think part of the problem, he was too honest.

How do you sing this?

Here's what he said.

Where is the blessing I knew when I first saw the Lord?

Where is the soul refreshing view of Jesus and his word?

I hear but seem to hear in vain, insensible as steel.

If all is felt, it's only pain defined I cannot feel.

What peaceful hours I once enjoyed, how sweet their memory still, but they have left an aching void the world can never fill.

Do you know what he's saying?

By the way, if you have no idea at all what I'm talking about, it's probably because you've never truly experienced God yet.

Because when you do, I mean, when you feel the presence of God all around you and you're singing a worship song and you feel like God is speaking directly to you.

And then you get the chill bumps kind of come across you and the hair on the back of your neck stands up.

And then somebody says something to you and you're saying, man, God is in this place.

Here's the problem.

You think that that's going to stay with you forever.

You almost deify it.

This is the ultimate.

There's nothing better than this.

Now it comes from divinity, but it's not divinity because most of us don't have any idea how much we have to attend to our relationship with God or it decays.

Think about it.

There's one of the greatest hymn writers of all time who had a very intimate, close relationship with God.

And he says, where's the blessing I knew when I first saw the Lord?

Where's the soul refreshing view of Jesus and his word?

Basically what he's saying is this, I've got spiritual entropy and I want you to understand that is the default of your life.

How many of you?

The second law of thermodynamics.

If you leave something to itself, it goes more and more to disorder.

It runs down.

It does not improve.

Well, this is the law of pneuma dynamics, spiritual dynamics.

You will burn down so fast spiritually unless you constantly pour on the fuel.

Now, here's why this is important, and we'll give you the remedy.

Christianity, folks, is not just a bunch of rules.

It's organic.

It's a living thing.

It's not merely about doctrine and theology, although those can be important.

It's relational.

It's organic.

It's living.

Other religions are not living and organic.

I have studied other religions for most of my life because before you knew me, I primarily was in the area of apologetics and traveled around universities here in America answering and asking questions.

And I can tell you, Christianity is incredibly unique.

All other religions are about appeasing God or getting the gods on your side.

Even Islam, even though it's monotheistic, they believe in one God.

But most Muslims will tell you that God is not personal.

And the idea of a relationship with him is blasphemy.

Allah is authoritative and isolated.

He's the cosmic boss.

He tells you what to do and you do it without question.

But the Christian God, Yahweh, The story of God is a God who wants to be known and experienced in a divine romance.

He wants to court you spiritually.

He wants you to pursue him spiritually.

And then he wants to enter into an everlasting covenant.

Do you know I finished reading last week a sociology study?

It was a study done among agnostics.

So those who don't deny God.

overtly, but just basically say, well, I don't know if there's a God or not, or skeptics who say, well, you know, there might be a God, but I don't think so.

So a couple of hundred of those were asked the question, what would it take for you to even try church?

So if you're an agnostic or skeptic, what would it even take to get you in church?

The number one answer is this.

If the church could show me how to experience God, they want to experience God.

We all do.

Do you see that that's what is happening now?

You don't realize, I don't think, how privileged this generation is.

You are experiencing God in a way that my generation did not at your age.

Something unique is happening.

Pastors who have been around for a long time know it.

Something is going on here.

You are seeking God.

You are seeking prayer from your peers.

You are expecting the Spirit of God to move.

You have a conscious awareness of the presence of God that is off the charts.

We call that revival.

It's not normal.

It's supernatural.

But listen to the old guy.

Revival is difficult to come by, incredibly easy to lose.

And it's because nothing kills revival faster than idol worship.

Nothing causes spiritual entropy faster than suddenly you stop focusing on God.

And you start focusing on something else, and suddenly, just like that, the fire burns.

It's gone.

So can I give you some of those fires?

Can I give you some of those distractions?

Yeah, I love you folks.

And we all have had our issues.

My generation had them too.

You've got them as well.

Social media, it has become your God.

Your emotional health is too dependent upon how many followers you have, your likes, your audience, your trending.

It's driving you.

It's controlling you.

And worse yet, you're robbing yourself of time.

and pursuit of God because the first thing you look at when you wake up and the last thing you look at before you go to sleep, and those typically are the things that are most important to you.

And you can't imagine living life without that phone.

It's got you.

Now, one more time, as I've said before, there's a reason there is a half-eaten apple on the back of your phone.

The generation before you struggled with Facebook.

And my generation kept warning them, rather than spending all your time on Facebook, how about getting your face in the book and meeting with God?

Suddenly, just like that, the fire's out.

And then you've got, unfortunately, you've got the lust of the flesh.

I mean, you're meeting with God, you're experiencing God, then you meet a guy or you meet a girl, and suddenly...

It's amazing.

Suddenly you throw God right to the curb.

Well, what do you mean?

Well, because you start sleeping with somebody you're not married to.

So your new God is sex.

So you're willing to give the real God up for this.

If you have to choose between the two, you're going to choose this.

And when you do that, you think spiritual entropy is not going to stand in?

And what's ironic about that is, here's how we rationalize.

We start blaming God.

Well, God, you know, I wouldn't have had to do this.

If your presence, if I could feel your presence, you'd answer my prayers from time to time.

Lovingly, I say, you hammerhead.

God is not mocked.

A man reaps what he sows.

Your actions have forced God out.

He's not walking with you anymore because he might kill you.

The fire burns low because you moved.

And often the fire burns low and we become ice cold because I mean, it's an amazing thing.

We do the wrong thing, so we stop going to God.

Why?

Because we're ashamed.

And we're afraid if we go back to God in prayer, go back to church when we're living the way we should not live, that God will remind us of the sin.

And you're right, he will.

But if you're a Christ follower, you're saved by grace through faith, and there's no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus.

So if he's convicting you, he's not trying to make you guilty under the law.

Christ forgives your sins.

He's trying to convict you to straighten up and repent.

and not to destroy your life.

You say, wait, Pastor Jeff, wait a second.

God told me that, matter of fact, you told me, Pastor Jeff, that God separates my sins as far as the east is from the west.

He remembers them no more.

Yeah, if you're confessing and repenting, but if your cavalier attitude towards sin is cavalier and you don't care, you're going to go cold, real cold.

Spiritual entropy, it can happen in numerous ways, but it doesn't have to be out of worship.

It can occur when you just don't attend to the spiritual life anymore.

When you stop paying attention to the things that brought nearness to God.

Think about it.

You used to begin each day with scripture and prayer, to listen to worship music in the car, listen to your favorite preacher's podcast.

But over time, because you return to the idols, things that you think will make you happy, those things get pushed aside.

And when they do, when they do, you go cold.

And you've never made the connection, but you know the fire's gone out.

Now, let me give you the good news first, and then the great news.

No more bad news.

When these things happen, please hear me on this.

You'll start to think if you were ever saved.

See, because you're going to go through, this is your spiritual life, all your life.

Get used to it, okay?

So you're going to think, man, I don't feel God anymore, so maybe I never really was a Christian.

Well, here's the issue with that.

When you experience God and then the soul feels his departure, it leaves an aching void.

But only a child of God would really ache at the absence of God, which means if you're cold and you ache, it's proof that you belong to God.

And if you're cold and you're tempted to say, I'm going to go back into the world, but then you stop yourself after a few months or whatever, days, hopefully, and you say, wait a minute, why would I do that?

That could never satisfy the way God has satisfied me in the past.

That means you're a child of God.

You may be a miserable child of God, but you're still a child of God.

Okay, you say, now let's end this.

You say, Jeff, I got it.

I got it.

What I want to know is how do I get back?

How do I get a conscious sense of the presence of God back into my life where the glory of God continues to pass by and come close?

Where I have an overwhelming sense of his presence, because that's what I want.

That's what you want.

We want it all the time.

Now, this is the brilliance of this story, okay?

Let's go around third, head home.

Here we go.

Exodus 33.

Then the Lord said to Moses, leave this place, you and the people you brought up out of Egypt, and go up to the land I promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying, I will give it to your descendants.

I will send an angel before you and drive out the Canaanites, Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, sorry.

Hittites and Hivites and Jebusites, go up to the land flowing with milk and honey, but I will not go with you.

Now, here's what God says.

Notice what God says here.

Amazing.

God says, I made you a promise.

I'm going to keep it.

I'm going to prosper you.

I'm going to deliver you.

I'm going to defeat your enemies who try to prevent you from taking hold of what I've already promised.

You're going to enter the land flowing with milk and honey.

I promised it and I'm going to deliver, but I'm not going to go with you.

You're going to get everything I promise, but you'll not have me.

I'm not going.

Now look at the people's response in chapter 33 verse 4.

When the people heard these distressing words, they began to mourn and no one put on any ornaments.

Now it wasn't Christmas time.

I'll explain ornaments in a second.

They mourn.

Really?

They mourn?

Maybe these people aren't as bad as we thought they were because their promise, military prosperity, economic prosperity, and great wealth you They're promised great success, but they were not promised God, and they began to weep.

Hey, imagine God coming to church, and I'm up in my office, and God shows up.

Boy, it'd be good.

Well, maybe not, but God says, Pastor Jeff, I'm going to give you the most dynamic church with dynamic services.

You're going to have excellent music, motivational preaching.

I'm going to bless you with all the bells and whistles, but you're not going to have my presence.

Now, the sad thing is many would not know the difference because they equate success with the presence of God.

They equate excitement, pizzazz, excellence with the presence of God.

But you can have all these things and not have God, right?

You know Bono?

You know Bono is U2?

Famous for the song, I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For?

One of the reasons he's never made a full-on commitment to Christ is he said, you know what?

When I went to a rock concert, and I went to a Christian worship concert, I felt the same way.

Now he's got a point, doesn't he?

If you've been to a concert, there's euphoria, there's hands in the air, voices raised, happiness, pleasure, emotional movement.

If you were to take a photo of a church worship service and a concert, you wouldn't see that much of a difference.

But the genuine Christ follower knows the difference.

And it's not just the words to the song.

One is pure emotion.

The other is internal transformation.

One is pleasurable satisfaction.

The other is internal deep joy that comes from experiencing God, an awareness and interaction with the Holy Spirit of God.

And once you've experienced that, you know what it's like and you never want to go back.

But don't ever assume that a happy life is proof of God's existence.

Israel's, I mean, they're happy.

God is blessing their socks off.

They got everything.

But then God says, I can't go with you anymore.

And the reason they mourn is because God is a living God.

He's not the God of the rationalist, just a concept.

He's not the God of the mystics, vague mystical experiences.

Our God is a living God, a personal presence.

And when he comes down, you know it.

And he can come down at any time.

Not just a church service, in your car, in the shower.

Well, maybe not the shower.

But most places, do you see this truth that even a stiff-necked people knew that if you have everything but you don't have God, you got nothing?

That the presence of God is the ultimate human experience.

Now listen, your generation is the generation of revival.

What is revival again?

An overwhelming awareness of and desire for the presence and experience of God.

You say, well, how do you know our generation hungers for God?

Because I talk to you.

I meet you at Clatch.

And I just walk up and talk to young adults all the time.

And I like it because you're young adults, you talk to everybody.

And I keep hearing Christ followers say, you want to feel God, you want to experience God.

And you know that God seeks to be known.

You desire his presence like no generation that I know before you.

Like Moses, you and your passion have a lot to do.

with the glory of God.

You want to see the glory of God.

And that passion for God's glory is contagious and it's impressive.

And I wish I was younger.

I really do.

And I could walk with every single one of you on this journey because I could save you so much time and hassle.

But I want you to learn from Moses as we close this out.

Moses said in verse 18, chapter 33, now show me your glory.

And the Lord said, I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the Lord, in your presence.

So Moses says, God, I want to see your glory.

I want to know who you really are.

I want to experience you on a deep level.

I want a close, intimate relationship with the God of the universe.

Actually, Moses has been saying that all throughout chapter 33.

In chapter 33, look at what he says in 12 and 13.

Moses said to the Lord, you've been telling me, lead these people, but you've not let me know whom you will send with me.

Now, what's he mean?

What's he talking about there?

God's already said, I'm going to go with you.

You have said, I know you by name and you have found favor with me.

If you are pleased with me, teach me your ways so that I may know you and continue to find favor with you.

Moses is saying, yeah, I know who you are, but I don't know you.

Teach me who you are.

Come close, God.

What is God's response?

Chapter 33, verse 19.

And the Lord said, I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the Lord, in your presence.

What does that mean?

Oh my goodness.

I mean, what has God, is he going to pass with a t-shirt and list all the good things he's done in the world?

I mean, what does it mean?

Well, it's the Hebrew word tuvi or tuva.

And it means, okay, let me see if I can describe this.

Sometimes in the Hebrew, you can't take one word like that and just suddenly explain it in English.

So I'll do the best I can.

Here's what it means.

He says, Moses, I'm going to pass by.

And in one moment of time, You are going to see all the benefits of a relationship with me in one moment of time.

What's the point of all this?

I don't know what happened in that moment, but Moses saw the grace and the mercy and the goodness and the forgiveness.

He saw everything in one moment of time.

We're described like this in Exodus 34.

Then the Lord came down in a cloud and stood there with him and proclaimed his name, the Lord, and he passed in front of Moses proclaiming.

The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate, the gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to the thousands, forgiving wickedness, rebellious and sin, yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished.

He's a just God, but my goodness, he's a good God.

So where do you begin?

I'm out of time.

I'm going to be quick, okay?

I'm going to be quick.

Don't be fooled by the promises of the world.

I'm going to give you three, please do these things and I'll stop.

Number one.

Don't put on your ornaments.

What does that mean?

When the people heard these distressing words, they began to mourn and no one put on any ornaments.

That's a Hebrew phrase that means don't get dressed.

What are they saying?

Hey, have you ever been sick and you just don't want to stop?

You know, you got stuff to do.

You got places to go.

So when I get sick, I'll just keep going.

I'll keep coming to the office.

I love to get all the other staff sick.

It's the stuff that I enjoy doing.

So I just come and I...

I keep working, I keep working, I keep planning.

Finally, my wife will say to me, Jeff, you gotta stop.

The most important thing right now is you get better.

Because until you get better, you can't do these other things well.

What happens in this passage?

People say, we're not going anywhere because until we sort this out, there's no need to get dressed.

Because having God's presence or not having God's presence impacts everything about my life.

My challenge to you is sort this out first.

mourn and plead with God as Moses did.

Tell God, show me your glory.

Tell God, if you don't go with me, I don't wanna go anywhere, God.

But you gotta beg and you gotta plead and you gotta ask for a God revelation.

Otherwise, he's not gonna take you serious.

You have to go before God.

That's my challenge.

God, give me a revelation.

Because without the presence of God, even the best times seem hollow and meaningless and most definitely temporary.

But with God, the worst times, Seemed to be filled with the glory of God and not only bearable, but sometimes preferable.

What?

I went through three and a half years of anxiety disorder where I couldn't go out of my house.

Now, those of you who don't know what that is won't understand.

Those of you who have those, you know exactly what I'm talking about.

You are helpless.

You feel like you're in a tunnel.

You can't move.

And yet those three and a half years were the best years of my life because it forced me to talk to God every single day.

Don't put on your ornaments.

Sort this out for a second.

Never be satisfied with where you are.

The first sign of deterioration.

Lean into God.

Never be satisfied with where you are.

God says, Moses, I'll give you everything I promise, but I'm not going with you.

And Moses says, not good enough.

I love this.

He says, I want you to dwell in our midst.

So then in verse 17, God says, okay, I'll dwell in your midst.

Moses says, not good enough still.

I want more.

I want to see your glory.

I want more than you dwelling in our general presence.

I want you to dwell specifically in my life.

I want a personal encounter.

Moses was not a perfect man, but man, he loved God.

Moses is an indictment on all of us.

With all of his shortcomings, he is spiritually healthy because he always wants more of God.

Here's my second challenge.

Repent for your lack of desire for God.

And then here's the beauty of God.

You can ask God, say, God, give me a desire for you.

Do you know you can do that?

You know you can go to God and say, God, I'm not desiring you right now.

I just don't feel it.

I'm ice cold.

And you can ask God, God, give that.

Now, when you do that, just be ready.

He may have to destroy all your idols.

Oh, but which one do you want the most?

And third, and it's my favorite part, and then I'll finish.

I tried to keep it down.

I really did.

Third part, obey, period.

Let me read to you, let me read to you something that happens in Exodus 3 that is amazing.

All right, I'm in Exodus 3, 11 and 12.

You don't have to turn there.

We'll be on the screen.

Moses said to God, who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?

And God said, I will be with you.

And this will be the sign to you that it is I who sent you.

When you have brought these people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this mountain.

Do you see what just happened there?

Moses said, how can I experience you, God?

How can I feel you?

So that I know you're with me when I do this hard job of leading your people out of Egypt into the promised land.

What's God's answer?

Do you notice the order in Exodus 3.12?

Let me read it again.

God said, I will be with you.

And this will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you or that I'm with you.

When you brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this mountain.

So God says to Moses, you want to feel me?

Do what I tell you to do.

And after you've done what I've told you to do, and you see how I delivered you, then you're going to be so overwhelmed, and you're going to know you can trust me, and you're going to get down on your knees, and you're going to worship me.

Some of you, the fire is cold because you are living a life of disobedience, and somehow you think your relationship with God can be hot.

God will not be mocked.

A man reefs what he sows, and God is not an enabling parent.

He is not going to give you the desires of your heart when you're in direct disobedience to him.

repent.

Please, please.

In Exodus 6, God gave Israel four promises.

We've been talking about that on the weekends.

And this whole Exodus story is a paradigm of your relationship with God.

We're given four promises in Exodus 6, 6, and 7.

I am the Lord.

I will bring you out under the yoke of the Egyptians.

I will free you from being slaves to them.

I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and mighty acts of judgment.

I will take you as my own people and I will be your God.

So following Jesus is getting out of bondage, which he did for you, being redeemed by the blood of the lamb, which he did for you.

God is becoming our God, which he is.

The question is, are you becoming his people?

He freed you.

He redeemed you.

The question is, will you be his people?

Can I please say to you, can I challenge you?

Don't put on your ornaments.

Sort this out.

Determine to pursue God.

Two, never settle for where you are.

As Moses did, keep asking for more.

Three, obey.

Nothing kills revival more than refusing to walk with God in his precepts.

Determine to pursue God.

Ask God for more and more of him and obey, and the revival will stay.

Father, Father, I thank you for the power of your word.

I thank you for every individual here.

And I pray this movement that you started here, we know it's of you because we could never manufacture this.

So I pray that every time a person comes on this stage to speak, whether it's Marissa, whether it's Rory, whoever it is, that the power of your spirit would give an anointing to speak words of truth to people that you've called to go into this valley and the world to change it.

Rain down your spirit with clarity that we are here to serve every person in this room, that they may discover your will for them.

and the way you want to use them in your world.

That's my prayer for our entire church.

In Christ's name, amen.