A Holy God, a Humbled Heart | Pastor Jason McKinnies | Purpose House Church

I want to thank you for joining our broadcast on the Pando app. We love you, and we're praying for you. You cannot manufacture reverence for something that you see is small. No one gasps at a puddle. No one falls silent in front of a candle flame the way they do in front of a wildfire. Reverence is always a response to size. I think some of the reason why we don't revere ministry as it's being brought down to a size where it's no longer touched not mind anointed to do my prophets no harm. It's now doing as much harm as you can. See reverence is always a response to size. That's exactly the problem with a lot of modern faith. We try to produce the fruit of reverence, worship, obedience, and awe while shrinking God down to some helpful assistant, some coach, life coach, a cosmic vending machine. You cannot get a real fear of the Lord from a small God. This week we need to let scripture show us how big, how holy, how magnificent and magnified God actually is because our reverence will grow only in a soil that sees him as big. And there's an invitation to us in Proverbs chapter 2, verse 1 through 5. It says, "My son, if you receive my words and treasure my commands within you so that you incline your ear to wisdom and apply your heart to understanding, yes, if you cry out for discernment and lift up your voice for understanding, if you seek her as silver and search for her as hidden treasures, then you will understand the fear of Lord and find the knowledge of God." See Proverbs 2 opens up with a string of verbs, and what is a verb? It's an action. They're active verbs. He says, "Receive, treasure, make attentive, incline, call out, raise your voice, seek, search." Solomon is comparing the pursuit of the knowledge of God. He compares it to prospecting for silver and hunting for hidden treasure. And this tells us something very, very important.

The fear of the Lord is not a feeling that just randomly falls on you in the middle of a worship song. We've had enough of that because you'll worship and get moved by the music in your soulless realm, but your spiritual man has not changed at all. That's why we have worship people that can lead worship out here and they go sit in the back and eat food and ignore the Word of God. That's why we can have worship people like Michael Tate go around the world singing, but he's never been absolutely changed by the very Word. Why? Because worship doesn't save you. You are saved by the foolishness of preaching. So it tells us, "The fear of the Lord is something more than just a feeling. It's the fruit of pursuit." Fear is rarely found in pure, solid chunks. Instead, it's mixed down inside of rocks and down into minerals. Verse 5 gives us the payoff. It says, "Then when you go hunting for it, then you'll understand the fear of the Lord and you'll find the knowledge of God." Understanding comes after the digging, not before it. See we've grown up in a world now where the preacher is required to give you all the knowledge of God. You come on Sunday and you think, "That's all I've got to do." The only time you open up your uversion app, the only time you open up anything is on Sunday. Right before you get handed a microphone, you're not digging. You're trying to have understanding without digging. And my friend, you've got to dig and then you'll get understanding. See, silver, when they dig for silver, most of you know about coal. They dig for silver is similar as they dig for coal. If it's on the shallow level, we call them strip pits around here.

But shallow, they would come in with machines and just begin to excavate out. But then when all of that is gone, they have to put shafts. They have to mine really deep and they have to go down deep for. But there's an interesting statistic. It says that about 72% of all silver that is mined comes as a bonus product by mining the other materials, so they're mining for copper and for lead and for zinc. And then while they're mining for that, they find the silver. They find a different treasure than what they were mining for. And see, what we often do is we want God, God, I'm just going to open up my Bible and you're going to show me something. I would tell you that when you're studying for something else, God just drops in a nugget right there. And all of a sudden, while you are mining for an answer to your prayer, God begins to But unless you go mining, you'll never find the nuggets. So only 28% of silver comes from mines that are dedicated to dig specifically to find silver. Let me just say this, I find so much about God. So I've been studying out the fear of the Lord for months. And in that, I started finding all these other things. And oh, I didn't realize that about God because as Pastor Melissa said, you're seeing a song, but all of a sudden, you're seeing a song with fresh ears. I was digging for the fear of the Lord and digging for the fear of the Lord. Go read Psalm one where I began. He says the reason why they don't have the fear of the Lord is because they're not like trees that are planted by rivers of living water. If you're a tree that's planted by rivers of living water, then you'll know the fear of the Lord.

And I'm like, oh, I've been reading about a tree, but I hadn't been reading about the fear of the Lord. But I wouldn't even mining for finding out about a tree. I was mining for the fear of the Lord. So Solomon though, isn't the first one in the Bible to describe the searches of cry? Not even in the book of Proverbs. In fact, chapter one, the Bible in Proverbs, it says the wisdom herself was crying out to be heard. In chapter two, it's our voice that has to rise. If you cry out for discernment and lift up your voice for understanding, I was telling Melissa this, I was in a business meeting a couple of years ago and they were throwing out acronyms and acronyms and acronyms and acronyms. And so we went to a coffee break and the guy next to me was brilliant. He was like Pastor Pete, he had baptized brains. And so we worked out a little code that when I didn't know what they were talking about, I would tap him under the table. And he would then write on a post-it note what they were talking about and slide it over to me. And then they would ask me a question and I would say, oh yes, I know exactly what that five letter acronym means. Here it is, why? Because I was searching for understanding. Now I could have stayed quiet at the table and said I didn't know, but I waited till a coffee break

and walked outside and I said to the individual, I said, hey listen, I am completely in the dark. They used an acronym called Oreo. I was thinking I was gonna get a glass of milk and I was gonna dunk a cookie. I didn't know what it meant, but because I cried out to somebody else who had more knowledge than I did, they begin to explain to me and then I had understanding. We have too many people in the church who don't know what we're talking about, but don't ask for help. Cry for understanding. So Paul told, so solemnly gets them very specific about the kind of effort involved to find understanding. He said, silver, it's a hidden treasure, not something you stumble over on a wall, it's something you dig for, you gotta go for it. Paul told Timothy, in 1 Timothy 5, 17, he said, you're to labor in the word and doctrine. The Greek word behind labor there means to work to the point of exhaustion and work to sweat. Labor for it, that sounds kinda demanding, doesn't it? And I know I'm not supposed to be demanding, but my goodness, we don't know the word because we don't labor for the word. That's why we're tossed about with every wind of doctrine. See wisdom is like silver. He didn't say gold because gold, you can just pull up a chair long, moving stream and get you a little pan out with the screen in it.

And just, and that's what folks wanna do in church. I just wanna come to church and every now and then one little treasure will just float by and I'll grab that one. But you gotta dig in God's word for silver. There's an old story of a young man who went to the great philosopher Socrates, and he said, give me understanding wisdom and knowledge. Socrates answered with a single sentence, follow me. So the man followed him and he led him down to the edge of the sea. He waited out way Steve. Socrates took the young man and took him and baptized him and held him under the water. And held him under the water. Finally, the young man stopped squirming and giving up. Socrates brought him up and the young man is gasping for air and he says to Socrates, I thought you were gonna show me wisdom and Socrates said, when you want wisdom as bad as you wanted your breath, you'll find it. Pastor, I wanna know what the will of God is from my pastor. I wanna know how to listen. When you want God as bad as you want your breath, you'll find him. That's what Proverbs chapter two, verse four. So if you seek her as silver and search for her as for hidden treasures, not curiosity,

but a hunger that will dig, it will sweat, it will go looking in the hard hidden places. See, there's a reward built into the method. What you mind yourself, you get to keep. People say, Pastor, how do you write those devotionals? I've mined all week long. Pastor, how do you get to your sermons? I've been mining for a year for this. Been mining for a year. I have little notes. Let me just give you some practical things. I use the notes app in my phone extensively. I have over 3,000 notes in my notes app on my iPhone. I'll be driving down the road and a thought will come into my mind. I'll say Siri, and she'll come on like every Apple product right now. Sometimes it's obedient, sometimes it's not. And I'll do a voice memo. And then I'll pull off to the side of the road. And I'll begin to mine through the thought and begin to write an outline and begin to do it. Every September in October, Melissa, now we go on a little trip. And we will be driving down the road. And I'd say Melissa, take out your phone. And I was thinking about this. And I would develop all of my series for the whole year in two weeks in October. And I would just begin to tell you,

this is what the Lord is speaking to me. You know how many years I've actually preached all the series is that I've written? None. Never. But I'm still mining, then I'm learning things about God. And then all of a sudden, I'm learning this about God. I learned that about God. Why? Because I started mining. And I understand you're not trying to get together a TED talk that's just a thesis paper every week. I understand that. But you have to mine for the things of God on your own. (congregation murmurs) See what you dig out with your own hands becomes yours in a way that second-hand information never does become yours. I'm giving you second-hand information. But then when I say something and you write it down, you're like, I need to go study that out. All of a sudden, God begins to reveal Himself to you in a way that me giving you second-hand information will never give you. Solomon gives us even a way to check our own progress. And it isn't a feeling of enlightenment or even a stockpile of Bible trivia. It's whether or not you're walking in the fear of the Lord, genuinely humbled before Him. See knowledge without that humility isn't the knowledge

that Solomon is describing. There's all kinds of people that want biblical knowledge to be able to refute you. I'm not trying to refute you. I'm trying to know Him. Solomon doesn't even leave the why unanswered. He had a few verses later. He explains that it is the Lord who gives wisdom. But that God deliberately conceals what He wants us to search for. Proverbs, chapter 25, verse two. It is the glory of God to conceal a matter. Solomon writes elsewhere, but the glory of kings, that's a small case, the glory of kings is to search out a matter. We have been given that search as a privilege, I just want to know why can't it be any easier? The search is the privilege. The hunger is the sign that you've been called by God. Not everybody hungers and thirst after righteousness. For every person who hungers and thirst after righteousness shall be filled. So the reason why you're not filled or the reason why you're dry is you've lost your hunger and you've lost your thirst. The privilege is not a punishment, it's proof that God has made us. In Peter's words, we are a royal kings priesthood trusted to go looking for what He has hidden. He trusts you enough to if you seek after Him,

you shall find Him. But you have to seek after Him. Why just with Pastor Melissa would do this. And I was Pastor Jason would do that. What you're doing is you are subcontracting your walk with God. You know when I had to hire a contractor for things I can't do on my own. I have a God coming to lay carpet. I could do it. There'd be lumps and wrinkles and all kinds of other things in it. But this I can do on my own. I could get into the word and study to show myself a proof to workman that needed to not be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of the Lord. So what happens when we begin to dig? What do we find when we dig? What's actually down there once we go looking? Isaiah chapter six shows us. It shows us what we find. He says in the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne high and lifted up in the train of His robe, filled the temple. And above it stood the seraphum and each one had six wings with two covered His face and with two He covered His feet and with two He flew. And one cried to another and said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth, Southern Illinois filled with His glory.

And the post of the door was shaken by the voice of Him who cried out. See when you saw the holiness of the Lord, they didn't say, holy. magnificent our God is, when you see how good God is, how much He has saved you from, your voice will cry out to where the pillars begin to shake, then you begin to say, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, the one who was and is and is to come. Holy is the Lord." And then the house was filled with smoke. Say, "We got to have fake smoke because we don't have real relationship." And so I said, "Whoa, is me." For I am undone because I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. For my eyes have seen, what do they see? They didn't see Uzziah. They saw the King, the Lord of hosts. Notice when the vision comes, it comes in the year that King Uzziah died. And Uzziah was no small figure. His fame had spread as far as the border of Egypt. The Scripture says that he grew exceedingly strong second Chronicles chapter 26 and verse 8. He was a king who had built armies and fortified cities and walked with the Lord for most of his reign. And Isaiah had lived his whole life. He lived his whole life in Uzziah's peace and prosperity. But he did not see the Lord, not like this. Why? Because now Uzziah was gone. Your Uzziah might be a mentor, might be a pastor, might be a season of stability, might be a minister you've leaned on more than you realized. See, I have to be careful of my whole life, that I don't lean on Melissa's worship as my own. Equally true, and she might amen this, she might not. She can't allow my digging into the Word to become her digging into the Word. See, you won't see the Lord as it actually is until you've

taken out whatever you've propped up in its place. Because whatever you've propped up is standing between you and him. I don't want glorious pastor here. See, in Isaiah finally said, he said, I see the Lord high and lifted up and he seated on a throne in his robe, he's filling the temple and above him, seraphim, beings of such power and glory. We don't even know what they fully look like. They covered their own faces, they covered their feet and his presence and they cry out in verse three, holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts and the whole earth is full of his glory. So if we start digging in this, we start seeing something. Their name is telling us something, seraphim comes through root meaning burning. So these aren't just ceremonial figures residing a line on cue in revelation. John describes four living creatures around that same throne who do not rest day or night saying the same three words of Revelation chapter four, verse eight. They are beings of enormous intelligence and power. And they have went everywhere in the earth and in the universe. And they have looked at everything. They have even looked at everyone else. They have seen everything and everyone. And then after seeing everything and seeing everyone, they choose to come back to keep their eyes focused and fixed on the throne of Jesus, the one person who has never once disappointed them. So after seeing everything and everyone, they choose to come back and they begin to recite, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God almighty. That word, that word holy there, it says apparently a cuss word at purpose house. It's the rooted in a word called cadesh. It means to consecrate or to set apart. cadesh describes something sacred. It's ceremonial. It's morally, morally correct. It's separated from everything common. Anything

broken. Anything that has been stained. Isaiah is the only place in the scripture where this becomes an attribute of who God is. And not only is it a single attribute, it's the only attribute of God that is repeated three times in a row. Notice we don't ever find loving, loving, loving, powerful, powerful, powerful, giving, giving, giving, healer, healer, healer. No, no, the only time you'll find it in three is holy, holy, holy. And Isaiah leans on that word so heavily that the holy one of Israel becomes one of the signature titles of God. Holiness is at one trait among many traits of God. In Isaiah's visit, it is the trait of God that defines all other traits of God. He is holy. And if you remember this, we required that if He is holy we are See, our holiness won't get to be holy, holy, holy, but we are to be consecrated, then we are to be set apart, and we are supposed to abstain from the very appearance of evil. We are to work out our own salvation with fear and with trembling. We are to save ourselves from this untoward generation. We're not to be associated with things of the world. We're not to be to come like the world, or talk like the world, or act like the world. And I know I'm gonna get called some old holiness preacher, but the holiness, without holiness, no man shall see the Lord. Now I'm gonna ask in Purpose House, if you're legitimately concerned about where we're headed as a region,

where you're legitimately concerned about where we are as a nation, and you're legitimately a before reliable. Help us push through. (audience applauding) Don't come in here, unprepared. Oh, come in here, oh, lackadaisical. Little bit lukewarm. He said, I'll spew you out of my mouth. - That's right, that's right. - What does Isaiah do when he sees the holiness of God? He's a prophet, he's a righteous man. He's the pastor of Purpose House. He's someone already walking with God. He doesn't say, wow, what an inspiring vision. He says, whoa, it's me. For I am lost. I am undone. I am a man of unclean lips. See, real exposure to God's holiness doesn't make us feel impressed. It makes us feel really small. It exposes what was hiding underneath our own self-estimate. The very temple doorpost shook and filled with smoke. Even the building itself couldn't stay unaffected by his presence. See, I know that we're not fearing the Lord. Listen, I'm not trying to be mean-spirited here by any stretch of the imagination.

I just grew up a little differently. And 25 years ago, some of you weren't even born and saw how our nation changed. I've been in church a long time and I've seen how the church has changed more than the nation has changed after September the 11th. Jamie Tuddle just laid into this, he was like, oh, the church mothers, are you chewing gum in church? I've watched people down here worshiping. I'm standing down there trying to get my mind on God, get ready for a sermon. They're yucking it up. And they're talking to each other about whatever. Leave here. Walk out to the, it's not a job of a job anymore. Purpose, cafe. Get a sprite. Open the sprite. Come down, set it right down to the floor. And we're standing there as pastors going, you gotta be kidding me. These people are worshiping. They're jumping around, they're shouting. That sprite's gonna go over the floor. The way I was raised in the fear of the Lord is you didn't do that stuff in church. (congregation applauding) Now listen, I know a lot of people didn't grow up like I did and I'm not trying to be demeaning or demanding.

I'm not trying to be rough on you. I'm just telling you that what that shows me is that the heart is not revering the Lord in that moment. When they're up here and they're singing to you about the name of Jesus and the first thought in your mind is I can't go the rest of this song without a coffee. (congregation murmuring) And I'm going, the presence of God is in the room. People are getting baptized. They're making a declaration. They're making an hour of direct declaration of an inward decision and people literally like, when Chick-fil-A opened. It's Sunday, they're closed. Why were things closed on Sunday? Because it was the Lord's Day. It was the Lord's Day. I gotta keep moving. So he doesn't say what an inspiring vision. He's just like, whoa, whoa, whoa, it was me. So why does size produce silence? Researchers who studied all, it's the emotion we feel before something vast, when we see something huge. They describe it as having two ingredients. It's a sense of vastness, something far bigger than your ordinary frame of reference. It's a need for accommodation. That's why there's some people that walk in this church and say, I'm against mega churches. This is not a mega church.

I'll take you to some churches that are mega. This is small by comparison to what God wants to do. It's the vastness, something far bigger than your ordinary frame of reference. It's the need, this other ingredient of all, it's the need for accommodation. You're trying to accommodate in your mind what you just saw. You've never seen it and it has broken literally your mind to take it all in. I've seen some wonderful things. to articulate with your words what you just saw or what you just felt. I can remember in October of 1985 we were in revival and the preacher of his last name was Milstead, I remember everything about it. And the Lord moved on me about three rows from the back. I was sitting there stealing candy from my grandparents. My grandmother had this cuticle kit in her purse. I love that thing. I would torture my grandfather during service and instead of saying "ow" he would say "man" and I would pull his hairs out and so I would take the tweezers and I'd pull and say "hey man" and "hey man" and whatever happened that night in October the 30th of 1985 the presence of God began to sweep back there and I stopped stealing candy and using the cuticle kit. And something came over me and I began, I just looked at my hands and the Lord baptized me in the Holy Ghost and fire. And then I'm listening to this. I got my hands up and I'm praying. I got my eyes closed because that's what we were taught to do. I got my clothes. I'm praying. I hear this woman laughing. Like this ain't funny. What was funny was my grandfather's reaction when I was pulling his hair out with his tweezers. This ain't funny. And I think somebody realized that I was confused and it was my grandmother. I was the

last grandchild to receive the baptism of the Holy Ghost in our family. And my grandmother was sitting in the seat and she was so overcome with emotion that she was watching God in the awe of God who has poured out his spirit upon all flesh and sons and daughters and the promises unto you and your children, your children's children, and she's watching that and it broke her frame. And she didn't know what else to do. She couldn't even say anything. She just sat there and laughed. She wasn't laughing like mockery. She was laughing at the awe of God. And I want the presence of God to sweep over your life until it breaks your frame. It breaks your reference and you can't say, "Well, I remember what God used to do." No, look at what God is doing right now. Stretches you, breaks you. And that was the pattern in the temple Isaiah's and moved by information about God. He's confronted with a vastness that his categories can't even hold. The only honest response was for something in him to give way. See, reverence is never going to come from a bigger idea about God. It comes from an encounter with God that is so big. It's too big for the frame you brought in. And you have nothing else to do but to allow what's on the inside of you to give way to him. And what is his reaction? He says, "Whoa, it's me." I know you guys are getting ready for baptism. Just hang tight, Bryn. Just hang tight. It'd be alright. I don't mean to point you out. I'm sorry for being demanding. But Isaiah is not alone in his reaction either. When Peter finally understood who Jesus was, he's in the boat with him. And he sees him for who he is. He didn't ask him for more miracles.

He fell down at Jesus' knees and said, "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord." Decades later, John, who once leaned on the chest of Jesus at the last supper, he saw him glorified on the island of Patmos and Revelation records John reaction. He said he fell down at his feet if he were dead. I don't like all that falling out in church. You'll fall on your face when you see him. Then it goes to this man named Thomas who said, "I believe if." I believe in if. And I want to tell you some of you that are in this room that you're, your surname is Thomas. And you say, "I believe in if." When he shows you the wounds that are in his side. And he shows you the hands that have been pierced for him in the feet. You will be like Thomas. You'll bow on your knee and say, "My Lord, and my God." I don't believe in the God. You will because every knee shall bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. My Lord, and my God. I'm in a prophet, a fisherman, a beloved disciple, and even a skeptic, all of them when they actually saw him they had the same first response. And it just baffles me how in the modern church we can feel the presence of God know who he is and know everything about him. And the first thing, the first inclination of our mind, instead of coming to an altar and kneeling, is to run to the parking lot and beat the crowd. Oh, it's just a traffic jam, Pastor. I wish to God and I pray to God that we back it all the way up the city hall. waiting to get in line at the church, giving it a pray over city hall. But here's what we'll do. I can't believe that, (mumbles) Yeah, but you'll go sit at seven, Bruh. And the seven we serve is brewing something better

than seven, Bruh. (audience cheering) See Isaiah six and six and eight says, and when he humbled himself, then one of the ceremony flew to him, having his hand alive cold, which he had taken with the tongs from the altar. And he said, he touched my mouth with it, and he said, "Behold, this has touched your lips. "Your iniquity has taken away and your sin has purged." Also, I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Who shall I send and who will go for us?" And then I said, "Here am I, send me." And here's where we have to be careful because there's a lot of people who quietly walk away from God. God moves on them and then they just walk away. That's why we can baptize them for 400 people and not have a second service. Isaiah's response actually looks like devastation, but keep reading. The seraph takes a cold from the altar, touches his lips and says, "Your guilt is taken away "and your sin atoned for." Then verse eight, Isaiah is now humbled and cleansed. And he says, "Here am I, send me." We have a whole lot of people saying, "Here am I, send me." And when pastor says, "No, you just leave this church "and go somewhere else because you want to be sent

"and not cleansed." The call was not there to punish him. A live call against unclean lips should have been tormenting. Instead, Isaiah calls it cleansing. What we call discipline in the church is not discipline, it's love. For whom the Lord loveth, he chases it. The picture here is actually closer to cauterizing a wound than inflicting one. And whatever your own unclean lips look like may God touch you with a coal, not to shame you, but to stop the bleeding in your life. And I just want to come to a close here. See, preachers have long summarized Isaiah's calling in three words. The woe, the low, and the go. Just give you something to remember. I think I've given you a lot to remember today. The woe, the low, and the go. And it's worth just kind of slowing down and being deliberate with that. See, woe is the exposure. Isaiah never arrives at I am undone by examining himself. He arrives there by seeing God. Conviction that starts with self-analysis turns into self-hatred. Let me say that again. Conviction that starts with self-analysis begins to turn into self-hatred.

But conviction that starts with the vision of God turns into honesty. And we need to be honest with God. In our woe, we're being exposed. Then there is the low, verse seven, it's the cleansing. Low, this has touched your lips. Your iniquity has taken away. The seraph doesn't linger on the diagnosis. The coal touches and the guilt is gone. There is grace and not a lecture. Then there's, that's the low. Then there's the go, there's the sending. Only after Isaiah has been exposed and cleansed as God asked, whom shall I send? After there's repentance and after there's grace, then it's who am I gonna send? And only then does Isaiah have anything to offer? He isn't volunteering to go out of guilt and he's not volunteering because he has talent. He's volunteering out of gratitude. See, I'd never, I'd never want to be a pastor for services just like today. I never had an enemy in the corporate world. I wind up with a new enemy every week. I don't even know why. I'll get some stupid email or something, I'm like, okay, cool. The only reason why I yield it to God, left my corporate job and came to Southern Illinois, was that I knew where my family was headed before God

kinda holding my dad. See, people say all the time, I don't know where I'd be without God. No, I know exactly where my family would be if it wasn't for God. I wouldn't even probably be awake right now because we had that propensity in a McKenna's family to do everything to the excess and we were alcoholics. I mean, my dad was drunk the night that God got ahold of him at the woodpile and because my dad would rehearse that story to me, I have gratitude. in a moment that I needed her the most. I was dating for eight years, I dated a Catholic girl. Nothing wrong with, she had a wonderful person, but I wouldn't be where I am today had I married wrong. So when I look back over my life and I see what God has done for me, I allowed Him to send me not because I'm talented. No, I didn't want to come, I come out of gratitude, thank you Lord. I have two daughters who when they come home, they bring their Bibles, they sit down at the table and they say, "Dad, can you explain this parable to me?" And I think, "Oh God, thank you." They've been so wounded and so hurt by the church, but thank you Lord, that they love you. And so I get up out of bed, out of gratitude to God. See, many of us serve God for the wrong thing, we serve God for the fishes and loaves, He's already given you the fishes and loaves. Can you serve Him out of gratitude for what He's done for you? And I know it's grow men, don't cry, you knew what you've been blessed, I've been blessed by God. Are you volunteering, are you serving, are you doing it out of gratitude for what God

has done for you? People say, "How could I ever repay you?" And then you don't even want to serve Him out of gratitude. I don't understand why we have to twist your arm to serve. And the order matters, because if you skip the woe and you go straight to go, you get performance, service that runs on ability and ambition instead of humility. It's the kind of service that looks impressive for a while, but then it eventually burns out, because it was never actually sent, it was self-appointed. You skip the low and you stay stuck at woe, then you get a faith that never gets off the floor. You have someone who has rightly seen their sin, but never lets the cold do its work. Those are the people in church they've passed right, just need to sit here for a while and heal. You've been healed. You're not bleeding anymore, time to get up off the sidelines and go. You've seen your sin, you've seen the hurt, I'm doing a so church shirt, ain't anybody been hurt by the church more than my listen, I, I come here every Sunday. Then you have people living in guilt instead of walking out through the grace that was offered. You're never meant to skip a step, you're not meant to camp out at one either. You're meant to go from woe, lo, and go. So if your picture of God has gotten small, it's gotten safe, it's gotten manageable. Think he's there just to bless your plans. I wanted to come here today and give you an invitation back to Isaiah chapter 6. Not to be crushed, but to be rightly humbled and then rightly sent. Habakkuk chapter 2 verse 20, the Lord, the Lord is in his holy temple that all the earth keeps silence before him. So before we ask God for anything else this week, I just want to invite you to just be quiet for a moment in his presence. It's a pastor Michael and I, we went to a conference a few years ago and Robbie Gallathey, who

pastors a Baptist church outside of Nashville, Tennessee, his church exploded in the gifts of the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, the Holy Ghost, all moved into a Southern Baptist church. And Michael and I went to the service and I didn't know what to expect. I mean, I heard about Robbie and I'm like, man, we were in a wild Pentecostal conference. It was wild. And Robbie got up and he began to speak about what the Lord had laid in his heart. He was sitting on the back porch and he was arguing with God about the Spirit. He's arguing with God about all these things that he'd been taught in seminary. He's arguing with God and God said, "I need you to be quiet." Well, how long, God said one year? So for one year in his prayer time, every day, he never said a word. When he come out of his silence, God begin to pour out his Spirit on that church. God begin to just do amazing things. And we're sitting there at a conference in Rob-- "you're used to talking, you want to worship?" He said, "I have prayed that a holy hush of God "would come over this auditorium." And I'm sitting there, you listen, man, I went from preacher to skeptic in a mop, that. I said, "It's never going to happen in this room. "All these wild Pentecostals in here, "and it ain't never going to happen. "Oh, my friend was I wrong." Pastor Michael, if I'm lying, you stand up. I'm telling the truth, you just stay seated since people don't trust what I say sometimes. Pastor Michael and I were sitting on the far left of the sanctuary, and I'm one of those guys I've never fallen out in God's presence. I've never fallen backwards into somebody's laid hands on me.

I'm just not that guy. Rob instead everybody's standing, when we stood, you saw a cloud of glory start from the right side of the building. Every preacher who was trying to get up out of their chair was being knocked to their knees. And you can see it coming. It was almost like God was just going, yeah, Jason, watch this. Watch this. Just watch this, pal, you think you can stand me, watch this. I think I even said something to you like, oh, my God, here it comes. And it started coming across the building and people falling on their faces before the Lord. And they just begin to sweep from the right side. And when it got to us, I didn't have time to go, I can't, I won't, it hit us. We're on our faces before the Lord and could not get a word out. We just saw on our face before the Lord. I don't know, was it an hour later? It was a long time. Finally, Robby got up off the floor and he said, okay, I want everybody to stand. And we're all, and we're just standing there. They had three more preachers lined up. And they said, well, listen,

we're so far gone on our time. We're gonna give you a vote. We can either close this out, you can go eat and come back tonight or we can keep going. We went, every person who was in the glory of the Lord didn't say, you know, I'm hungry for Burger King right now. No, every person said, where the glory of the Lord is this where I want to be. So I just want to give you a moment to sit silently before the Lord. Whatever is in your life that you have propped up between you and God, I would ask for you to tear it down today and see the Lord high and lift it up. And may his train fill your temple. And may you come out of it and see God more magnified than you've ever seen God before.