Alright. Hey everybody. Welcome to Valley Creek. We’re so glad you are here with us today. And we are way deep into a series called Follow the Cloud. We’ve been talking about following Jesus one next step at a time. This has been a big series. God’s been moving in this series. And I just want to start by celebrating you for leaning in.

In a world that’s leaning out of everything all the time, in this series you’ve been leaning in. Like some of you, this is all new revelation and it’s opening your eyes to a new reality. Some of you, this is this is turning back on the fire that was in you, but it went out over this last season and it’s coming back on. Some of you, the series is scraping together the coals and the fire that’s burning is burning even hotter. And then some of you, you’re here and you’re struggling, and you’re weary, and you’re wore out, but you’re here And you’re leaning in and you might not have faith for you but we have faith for you and we believe that the gospel changes us from the inside out. And that’s really what we’ve been talking about. We said that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the father but by him. That your Promised Land is not a destination, it’s a revelation of who you are, who he is and what you were created to do.

And we use this simple little illustration called the three circles that really represents the gospel. As I receive His grace, I’ll experience His presence and I’ll start to release His kingdom. When I know who I am I know who He is and I know what I’m created to do. And I believe I’m a beloved son, I will run to the Father and I will spend my life building His kingdom. When I know I’m forgiven I’ll never be afraid of God and I will live free. But the opposite is also true. If I resist His grace, I’ll avoid His presence and I’ll spend my life doing my own thing. If I don’t know who I am, I don’t know who He is and I don’t know what I’m created to do, if I’m a spiritual orphan, I will be afraid of God and I will spend my life trying to become significant. If I’m full of shame and guilt and condemnation, I will avoid God with everything I’ve got and I will spend my life in bondage.

We are drawn by grace. The problem is a lot of us live our life driven by expectations. We start in circle three and we try harder, we behave better, we do more so that God will accept us so that someday we can pay off our past and finally become successful and significant, not realizing that in Jesus you are already as significant as you will ever be. Who you are determines what you do. Identity determines behavior. And we started last week with circle one. We said circle one is the most important circle. It all starts there. You never graduate from the school of identity. And we said as we receive His grace, it forgives our sins, it changes our identity and it empowers us to live differently. And as I receive His grace, I can’t help but now be drawn to experience His presence. You see, it all starts with circle one, but circle two is the great privilege of your life.

The fact that out of all the places in the universe that God could choose to dwell, He chooses to dwell in you, that you are the dwelling place of God, the temple of the Holy Spirit. You are the body of Christ. You are fully known, fully loved with no fear of rejection. You can boldly approach the throne of grace. You are not meant to serve a distant God, but walk with a loving Father. You see, if we go back to the story of the Israelites that we’ve been looking at through this series, God went through great lengths to set them free. He raised up Moses as the deliverer, brought the ten plagues, completely destroyed Egypt. And when He set them free, He didn’t just go, okay, you’re free. Enjoy your life. No, He gave them a cloud to follow and the cloud was His presence in their life.

Look at what it says. It says, “You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt,” the great lengths I went through, “and how I carried you on eagle’s wings and brought you to myself.” He says, I set you free so you can live free in relationship with me, experiencing my presence. And the same is true with you. God went through great lengths to set you free. He sent Jesus, the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus and He didn’t just set you free and say, now go figure out how to live free. No, He set you free and then he gave you his Holy Spirit that you might walk with His presence through this life. Look what it says, “For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God.” God set you free not to make you religious, not to make you a do-gooder, not to make you go to church. No, no, to bring you to Himself.

He died once for all, all of the sin, all of the separation, all of the shame, all the distance and barriers and boundaries between you and God were completely eliminated once and for all in Jesus’ name. In fact, many of you have never seen this verse in the Bible. Look at this verse, “In him and through faith in him we may approach God with freedom and confidence.” That’s incredible. That says there is no more boundary, barrier, distance between you and God. With freedom and confidence. You can go right into the throne room. Why? Because of what Jesus has done once and for all, to bring you to God. In fact, when you read the gospels, remember Jesus came to show us what the Father was like. And there was no distance, boundaries or borders between the brokenness of humanity in Jesus.

The lepers came right up to him. The sinful woman washed his feet. The woman with the flow of blood reached out and grabbed him. The crowd pressed in on him. And it shows us that there is no more distance between you and God. Come on, we are not meant to just know about God, we’re meant to experience God. He is not a topic to study, to analyze, to understand, to manipulate or control. He’s a person to be in relationship with. And you were created to experience His presence. Come on, lots of verses today, so just roll with me on this. “To know this love that surpasses knowledge – that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” It says that you may know, experience something beyond knowledge, the presence of God, that you may be filled to the measure of all of His fullness.

Or how about, “Taste and see that the Lord is good.” That’s an experience. It’s not just information. Okay, can I ask you a really honest question today? Why did you gather today? Like why are you here? Did you come just to come to church? Did you come because your kind of religion is a part of your life? Did you come to get some more knowledge or some information? Did you come to see your friends or did you come to experience His presence? See, we have to change our mindset of what all of this is. And we have to start coming with a reverence and an honor and a humility and an expectation and an anticipation that I can with freedom and confidence meet with God today.

Come on, I’ve said this for years, like if your life is so busy that you can’t be here for a 65-minute experience, then I would encourage you not to come late so that you make the message and miss worship. I would encourage you come on time, stay for worship and then leave early before the message. Now, I know that messes with all of us because we’re convinced church is the message. But the message is not the main event, God is. And if your life is so busy you don’t have 65 minutes to meet with God, you don’t need more content, you need more connection. You literally need to slow your life down and you need to get in His presence because it’s in His presence where we change. We can’t have a form of godliness but deny its power. We can’t have knowledge without experience. In fact, we can’t raise the next generation that way because that’s religion, to know all these things about God but never to actually experience God.

We weren’t meant to know about God, we were meant to experience Him. And we need to teach the general next generation how to actually walk in relationship with God. And that comes by seeing it in your life and mine. Are you with me on this? See, you can be as close to God as anyone who has ever lived. I want you to think about this with me for a second. You can be as close to God as anyone who has ever lived. In fact, right now you are as close to God as you want to be. The only distance that remains between you and God is that which you choose. Now, I know some of you you’re sitting here and you’re spinning and you’re like hang on a second, there were some amazing people in the Bible. Yeah, Abraham was a friend of God.

Moses spoke with God face to face the way a man would speak to his friend. David was a man after God’s own heart. And you’re telling me I can be as close to God as them? Yes. Why? Because Jesus said, “Born of a woman there is no one greater than John the Baptist and yet the least in the kingdom of God is even greater than him.” In other words, John the Baptist was the greatest figure of the Old Testament, of the old covenant. But the least of us in the kingdom of God have a far superior access and reality with God than they ever did. Why? Because there was boundaries and borders and all of these things that had to be done in order to make a way into the presence of God and only a few people could do it at limited times. But when Jesus came, he broke all those things down, fulfilled all of the requirements so that you may now with freedom and confidence boldly go to God.

So the only distance is that which you choose. So can I ask you a question? Are you enjoying God in this season? Like do you feel close to God? Do you feel connected to Him? Are you experiencing His presence? And I would guess from so many of the people that I talked to, so many of our answers would just be no. I feel distant from God. I feel disappointed in God. I’ve got these doubts with God. Like I feel like He’s hiding from me. Like where is He? He’s not hiding from you, we’re hiding from Him. Go all the way back to the garden when Adam and Eve sinned and they fell. The first thing Adam did was he ran and he hid.

And it was God that came walking through the garden, “Adam, where are you?” And God sought out Adam and drew him out and gave him animal skin to cover his sins so that they could be close again. God’s not hiding from us, we’re hiding from Him. So the question is why are you hiding and where are you hiding? Come on, look at what Jeremiah tells us. He says, “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” We know God is seeking us with all of His heart. The real question is, are we seeking Him with all our heart? Like how much of God do I want? How hungry and desperate are you for the things of God? How much are you willing to press in and push through the things of this world to take advantage of the freedom and the confidence that God has given you to experience His presence?

I had a great conversation with some of our 20-somethings leaders a couple weeks ago. And one of them just asked this question, they said like, what do you do in those seasons when you just feel so dry with God? Like you feel like He’s distant and you can’t hear His voice and you don’t know where He is and you just feel so disconnected from Him? What do you do when we use this analogy? And we talked about it’s kind of like having a well. And when the water in a well runs out, what do you do? You dig a little deeper. And then water comes in and you’ve got water for a season. And when that water runs out, what do you do? You dig a little deeper. And then when that water runs out, you dig a little deeper and a little deeper. And the next thing you know you look up and you can’t believe how deep of a well you’ve actually dug. See, God doesn’t hide things from you, He hides things for you so that you will seek Him with an increased intentionality.

And so when it feels like the waters run dry, here’s what you have to think, you have a relationship with God. And just like any relationship changes over time. People that are married, they connect a certain way at year one, a different way at year five, a different way at year 25, a different way at year 50. You wouldn’t expect the marriage to stay exactly the same, right? Same is true with God. So sometimes He changes ways that we connect with Him to take us deeper. Maybe you really connect with God reading Scripture, but in this season it’s dry. Well, maybe He’s inviting you to dig a little deeper and meditate. Maybe you really connect with God in fast worship, but all of a sudden clapping your hands doesn’t seem to do much for you. Maybe God’s inviting you to dig a little deeper and enjoy Him in the quiet worship.

Maybe you really connect with God serving and that’s not working anymore. Well, maybe God’s inviting you to now start leading and dig a little deeper. Maybe you really connect with God consuming content, maybe God’s saying, you know what, let that waters run dry, I want to connect with you in stillness. Are you catching me in this? See, it’s not God, it’s us, and it’s an invitation to say that water is run dry, so what do I do? I dig a little deeper. The best thing that can happen to a tree is a drought. Why? Because it forces its roots down deeper to find water. Sometimes they -- change your mind. Sometimes the best thing that can happen to you is to feel disconnected from God because it’ll force you to dig a little deeper and find Him in a whole new way in Jesus’ name. Are you with me on this? Come on, look what Jesus says, “I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; but apart from me you can do nothing.”

If you feel wore out, if you feel dry, if you feel fruitless, the problem is not your boss, the problem is not the circumstance, the problem is not the situation, the problem is not your spouse or your children or your parents or school or the world, the problem is that I’ve disconnected from God. I know He remains in me because He will never leave me nor forsake me because He already left Jesus on the cross and He can’t do that now to me, so I’m the one that’s disconnected myself from the vine. That’s why I feel like I’m withering. And so God in His goodness and His grace is saying, come on, receive some grace and experience my presence, and let me produce fruit again in your life. Come on, you remember the story of the prodigal son? A young man who wanted to find in the world what he already had in his father?

And so he took his inheritance and in a sense severed the relationship between him and his father and went out and spent it in wild living in parties and got to the end of himself, and was completely broke down, burned out, had nothing left. And he rehearses this little repentant speech not because he’s sorry but because he’s hungry. And he goes back to his father and he comes and he starts his sad little sorry, apology speech. And the father interrupts him and says, my son has come home, and gives him a big, old hug. And says, get a robe, a ring, sandals and put it on him, we’re going to have a party tonight. And I think a lot of us are familiar with that story and a lot of us can say this, yes, I’ve come back home and I know I’m a beloved son and I know I’ve got the robe, the ring, the sandals, that I’m a hope carrier and I’m supposed to live on mission with God. But you know what I think a lot of us are missing? The hug.

It’s the hug of I love you, that you are as loved in this moment as you will ever be in your entire life, fully known, fully loved, with no fear of rejection. You can’t bypass circle two and expect to live free. This is why the Bible tells us, “So we know,” we experience, “and rely,” rest, “on the love that God has for us.” You need the Father’s love if your heart is ever going to feel alive and free. May you receive that after a long, hard, weary season in Jesus’ name.

This is not knowing, this is experiencing. You with me on that? You see, God is always drawing us deeper into His presence because where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And so when He comes to the Israelites and He wants to set them free through Moses, Moses goes and confronts Pharaoh and says, “Let my people go, so that they may worship me.” God wants to free them so they can worship Him. And when we think worship, don’t think three songs, raising your hands the first half of the church service thing. No, no, worship is the affection and the attention and the focus of our heart turned towards God, every area of our life in submission and surrender to Him. And so see if you can just track with me on this progression.

Moses tells Pharaoh, God says, “Let my people go, so that they may worship me.” And Pharaoh responds and says, okay, “Sacrifice to your God here in the land.” In other words, Pharaoh says, I don’t care, you can have as many gods as you want. You want that to be one of your gods, knock yourself out, just stay here in the land. Have your god of work and fortune and fame and your hobby and success and school and sports, you got to stay here in the land though. Just let God be one of many, a life of convenience, a life that’s comfortable, a life that doesn’t require a lot of effort or intentionality and seeking God. And Moses says, nope, not going to work for us. So some plagues come against Pharaoh. [Tskk, tskk, tskk] And then Pharaoh relents and he calls Moses back in and he says, “I will let you go… but you must not go very far.” Like okay, you can go worship God, just don’t go very far. In other words, I need you to keep one foot in both worlds. You can have a foot with God but you got to keep a foot here in Egypt with me.

Like come on, don’t be too radical. Don’t really be devoted or committed. I mean come on, there’s other people in this room that you might work with. They might be your neighbors, they might go to the same school as you. What will they think about your reputation if they actually see you wholeheartedly worshiping God? Not very far. Moses says, sorry, not going to work for us. Some more plagues come. [Tskk, tskk, tskk] Pharaoh says, okay, have only the men go and worship the Lord. That’s great, you can --- your men can go as far as you want -- as they want to go, but in other words, you got to leave the next generation here. You go, you go, give me the next generation and we’ll call it good. This is the person that says, I worship God but my spouse and my family and my kids don’t. Come on, I can’t make my kids do that. Middle school, high school, being a young adult, that’s hard enough anyways.

I just got -- we just want them to be accepted and loved in school. Okay. So I’ll worship God, but not my family. I’m not going to fight for them. Moses says, nope, not going to work for us. Some more plagues. [Tskk, tskk, tskk] “Go, worship the Lord. Even your women and children may go with you, only leave your flocks and herds behind.” Okay, all of you can go, just leave your money. Flocks and herds, it’s their money. You can -- you all can go, just don’t trust your possessions to the Lord. Because Satan doesn’t care if you go all the way if you don’t trust God with your money. Why? Because where your treasure is, there your heart is also. So he’s still got your heart. You go sing all the songs, do all the religious stuff, you want go to church every day of the week, I don’t really care, I still got your heart. Moses says, not going to work for us. Some more plagues. [Tskk, tskk, tskk] “Go, worship the Lord as you have requested.”

This is the journey that god’s leading us on. Do you see it? Little by little, pushing further, farther, deeper into His presence. Why? Because where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. So the question is how much of God do you want? How far are you willing to go? Are you willing to go beyond comfort and convenience? Are you willing to get both feet into the kingdom of God and say, I’m going to be devoted and radical and committed, I don’t care what anybody else thinks about me? And I’m going to fight for my family because I’m tired of the world shaping everything about them. So as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. Come on, wake up to that one. And I’m going to give God my money and my time and my resources because I want Him to have my heart. This is the whole point. Come on, Jesus’s obedience determines your identity. Your obedience determines your intimacy.

What Jesus did once and for all secures your relationship with God. What you do determines the quality of what that relationship actually looks like. And what God is trying to do is get our whole heart. This is what worship is, it’s our whole heart. Come on, we live these fragmented lives. This is my church box, this is my faith box, this is my work, this is my family, this is my money, this is my hobby, this is my school, this is my sports and we segment everything. God’s trying to integrate you so you love Him with all your heart, mind, soul and strength. And it’s so easy to say you worship God, but you know what we really need to do is just look at your Netflix account. What’s on your social media? Let’s check out your credit card expenses and how you use your time. That will tell us what’s really going on in here.

Because it’s so easy to give me this little 45-minute window and say, me and Jesus are good. There’s more than that though. You with me on that? Okay, you’re not going to like this. Ready? I’m just going to tell you. When God comes to Pharaoh through Moses, He says, “Let my people go.” Not ‘let my person go’. “Let my people go.” A community, a nation, a family. And God is in the business of redeeming communities. We have individualized all of it. Individual salvation, personal relationship with Jesus, the me and Jesus thing, but you got to catch it, it’s “let my people go”. There was a cloud to follow. They didn’t all have their own cloud. It wasn’t like [pop], here’s Moses cloud here’s, [pop], Joshua’s cloud, [pop], here’s Aaron’s cloud, [pop], here’s Korah’s cloud.

Korah did not have a cloud. If you’ve been reading with us, that’s really funny. There was a cloud. And if people were going to go in different directions, they would be sent by the community. They didn’t all just go and do what they want, when they wanted, how they wanted. Yes, you are the dwelling place of God, but we are the dwelling place of God. Yes, you are a part of the body of Christ, but we are the body of Christ. And if the most important thing to Jesus is relationships, then the cloud is always going to be leading you into relationship with God and his people. You cannot get away from this if you actually read the Bible. There is no way around it. But here’s the bad theology that the world, that the church at large is picking up, me and Jesus. Like me and Jesus are so good and then I get around you and it gets all messed up.

Me and Jesus, we’re like bros, like homies, it’s great. Then I get around you and I get all offended and angry, upset, I respond in poor ways and it’s not good for any of us. So it’s just going to be me and Jesus. You guys do whatever you want. Could it just be that God’s bringing you around us so that all that stuff that’s getting triggered inside of you can actually be exposed so it could be healed? Could it just be the reason you get all offended and angry and frustrated is because you’ve got insecurities and ungodly beliefs and sin and pride in your heart that gets exposed by the community of faith? The answer is yes. Let me just help some of you that are wondering. The answer is yes. And so that whole me and Jesus, that -- it’s demonic. Because the cloud is always leading you to God and his people.

Yes, there has to be you and Jesus, but it’s not just you and Jesus. “Let my people go.” You with me on this? I mean think about it like this, the 40-year journey of the Israelites, do you realize we really only talk about two of the 40 years? We talk about two of the 40 years. We talk about the 10 plagues, getting set free, crossing the river, the Ten Commandments and then taking the land. What did they do for 38 years? They wandered around the desert and enjoyed God together. That’s it. So for us, progress, visionary, advance-oriented people, what that’s teaching us is that maybe the whole point of life is not going somewhere or doing something, it’s enjoying someone. For 38 years, they enjoyed God together. They woke up and they pack up all their stuff, [Tsk, tsk, tsk], get it all and then they’d move wherever the cloud went, and they’d be like why are we here?

We don’t know, we got to set it all back up. Yep, a lot of stuff to do. [Tsk, tsk, tsk] Set it all up. What do we do now? Enjoy God I guess. Okay, tomorrow what do we do? I don’t know the cloud’s moving. [Tsk, tsk, tskk] Pack up all the stuff, move it all over here, set it down right here. [Tsk, tsk, tsk] What do we do now? “Well, I think we’re supposed to enjoy God again today. This is the thing. Come on, this is why Moses says -- bonus for another day. This is why Moses says, “If your presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here. How will anyone know that you are pleased with me and with your people unless you go with us? What else will distinguish me and your people from all the other people on the face of the earth?” In other words, Moses preferred the desert with God to the Promised Land without God. Moses said, I would rather stay here with you than go there by myself.

Here’s the problem for us, we would rather go there by ourselves than stay here with God. Come on, how often do we get ahead of God or lag behind Him? We go and we take that job. We go and we move schools. We go and we join that new activity. We go and we change churches. The real question is, did God ask you to go or did you just decide to get up and move? The heart of a cloud-follower is, I would rather stay here with you than go there by myself. Come on, this is the real life stuff. Do you know like -- I think it was like 13 years ago give or take -- I was an associate pastor here. And our lead pastor asked me to take a different role and give him a two-year commitment to stay in that role. Well, I didn’t want to do that. I didn’t want to be here. Colleen and I never wanted to move to Texas. Church, you can confess things and be free. We wanted to go back up north and plan a church.

And so I thought, there’s no way. There’s no way I can do this. Because I had other opportunities, I had things moving. I had some other great opportunities on the horizon. And I prayed about it and I never forget I heard the Lord saying, Johnny, I can do more in two days than you can do in two years. Will you serve me by serving your pastor? And I had a choice to make. Was I going to go there by myself or stay here with Him? And it was almost two years to the day that then on 10-10-10, I stood up and became the lead pastor of our church. We had Saturday and Sunday services. And in that moment, God spoke to me and He said, I just did more in two days than you would have been able to do in the last two years. Because here was a thousand people now that I got to start with as opposed to going and scraping and trying. And the point wasn’t what became of the opportunity, the point was for those two years I learned to enjoy God. Come on, look at what he says, “What else distinguishes me,” but your presence?

All the things we try to run ahead on, all the things we try to go and get, you know what we’re trying to do? We’re trying to find things that distinguish us. Go get that promotion, win that award, make that money, live in that prestigious neighborhood, go get that thing, get your kid into that school. What are you trying to do? You’re trying to validate and distinguish yourself, not realizing that the greatest attribute of your entire life is the presence of God. You are already distinguished from all the peoples of the earth because God is with you. The question is just are you aware of it? You with me on this? See, the reason we struggle with this is because when Adam fell, he not only destroyed our identity, he broke our view of God. The reason we withdraw from the presence of God or go without Him is because in our mind God is harsh and judgmental, He’s this authoritarian figure.

But nothing could be further from the truth. See if you can catch this. Moses asks God to show him His glory. Moses said, “Now show me your glory.” Glory is like what you’re famous for. It’s what you’re known for. It’s kind of what you’re good at. Your glory is the core of who you are. It’s what you’re known for. It’s what your reputation is. It’s what you’re really good at in life. And God responds by saying, “I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you.” Show me your glory God and God says, okay, you want to know what I’m famous for? You want to know what I’m good at? You want to know what my reputation is? I’m good at being good. He doesn’t -- show me your glory. He doesn’t say, I’ll cause all my power to pass in front of you. I’ll cause all my might, I’ll cause of my warrior strength, my miracles and my supernatural power.

He says, no, you want to know what I’m really good at and what I’m famous for and what’s at the core of my being? Goodness. Give thanks to the Lord, for He is --

Good.

We know that in all these things God works together for the --

Good.

you intended this to harm me, but God intended it for --

Good.

Good. In your life, as you go through your daily life, are you aware that the presence of God is with you, which means the goodness of God is with you? And He says, “I will proclaim my name, the Lord, in your presence, and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.” He says, I will proclaim my name. I’ll tell you who I am. And you know what the first things that come out of His mouth? Grace and compassion. Not anger and frustration, not harshness and retribution, not wrath and bitterness. He says, grace and compassion define my name. I’m good at being good.

And this is why when Jesus comes, Jesus, “The word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory,” what he’s good at, what he’s known for, what his reputation is, “the glory of the one and only, who came from the father, full of grace and truth.” He came to show us who he really was and what he is good at and what comes out of the mouth. Again, first grace and truth. The truth is God is good and He’s good to you. And so the real question is not is God with me? It’s am I aware that He already is? And am I aware in my failures and my victories, and in my struggle and in my pain, and in my trials that He is good and that goodness is what is with me?

It is so hard to experience his presence when you’re not present. And the problem is we are so busy, we are so in our heads, we are so in our devices, that we are not present enough to actually experience the very presence that is all around us in every way, shape and form, every day of our lives. And it is the great privilege of your life that the glory, the goodness of God is what resides in you. So you close your eyes with me. Maybe just set your stuff down just for a second with me.

Let’s just take a moment and experience His presence together. The Bible says, “He holds all things together,” which means that right now His presence is literally holding the very molecules of your body in place. Can you feel Him holding you together even though the world is flying apart? The Bible tells us His presence surrounds us, that there’s nowhere we can go to flee from His presence. So right now, can you feel God above you and below you, to your left and to your right?

Can you feel him on your skin and right here in this atmosphere? And not only does He surround us, but as followers of Jesus, he’s within us. Jesus breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” So can you breathe in a big, deep breath [whoo] of the presence of God? Can you just feel Him in your feet? Can you feel Him filling up your legs? Can you sense Him in your belly?

Can you feel Him filling up your chest and pouring down into your arms? Can you feel His presence coming up and filling your head, washing your mind with His goodness and His grace and then feel His presence overflowing you and running down in every direction? His presence is in our godly relationships. Where two or three gathered, there he is also. Well, two or three of us gathered so Jesus is here. So can you even sense him moving up and down this room or in your home, taking a seat right next to you with a big, old smile on his face?

Just being like, you know what I’m good at? I’m good at being good. That’s the goodness of God right there, even that picture of Jesus smiling, it’s renewing your mind of who God is. And the Bible tells us that he’s enthroned on our praises. In other words, when we worship together, we literally build a throne room in the center of this room, a throne where Jesus himself comes and sits and where he rules his life reigns. So can you just sense him right in the center of this room? Can you just feel his hope, his freedom, his love, his grace, his power raining down on any and every area of your life?

Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And because of what Jesus has done, there are no boundaries, no borders, no barriers between you and God. In Jesus’ name, may you approach with freedom and confidence, may you experience His presence, may you hunger and thirst for the Lord, and may we go beyond knowing to an experience that is bigger than knowledge and understanding.

So Holy Spirit, would you come and fill our church to the fullness of the measure of God? Set us free as a people and lead us deeper into experiencing you in every area of our life, in Jesus’ name we pray, amen.