Heart For God's Presence | Pastors Adam and Rebecca Peterson

We've been digging into this as a 12 weeks now, 12 weeks now, which has been amazing and So my name is Adam. This is my wife Rebecca. If we've never met, we have the honor of leading and pastoring rise church. We're so grateful that you're here. Matter of fact, if you're a first-time guest, find us out on the patio. And then we want to take a minute to welcome everyone who's joining us online. Hey online family, we love you. We're grateful for you. Thank you for being a part of our church family. And then we also want to take a minute to welcome all of the men and women who are joining us in correction facilities across the U.S. We love you. You are a church family and I pray that God speaks a word to your heart today. So if you are new to our church and you're like 12 weeks serious, man, I've missed every single one of the weeks. They've kind of gone week to week, but the whole theme is this, that we are the house of God. That He lives in us as followers of Jesus. And maybe you're here today. Maybe you're watching online and you don't have a relationship with Jesus. That is step one for you. We're so glad you're at our church. God loves you. He wants a relationship with you today. And I hope that you hear that today. But if you are a follower of Jesus, man, you need to know you are the house of God. He lives in you. And then collectively we come together as the church. We are the house of God. And so we want to have a heart for God's house. And so we want to close out this series today with this topic. We want to have a heart for God's presence. And we probably should have kicked off the series with this, but we really wanted to wrap it up and just kind of lean in this today. And we want to just answer three questions because I know so many people are coming from different backgrounds of church. Maybe you're not familiar with church at all. I grew up Southern Baptist and I love my Southern Baptist roots, but we didn't talk about the presence of God too much when I grew up in that church. And so we just want to kind of bring you in because I lived a lot of my Christianity thinking God's there. I'm here. And I got to try to get to Him. And what I realized from reading God's word is yes, God is in heaven and He's over all. But His presence is omnipresent, meaning it is with me at all times. And here's the really good news you're ready. God has promised that with His presence He would never leave us. He would never abandon us. He's never walking out on us. He is right here. And I know it's supernatural and we can't really explain it, but aren't you grateful for a God that wants to be with us. So we're going to answer three questions today. I heard a pastor say this years ago. I love it. We're going to put the cookies on the bottom shelf where everybody can grab one. How many of you love a good cookie? If you love it, say amen. All right. So number one, we want to answer this question. What does it mean to be in God's presence? And the best way that I can explain that is to take you all the way back to the beginning. We open up the Bible in the beginning in Genesis. We see God creating all of the world, all of creation. And what He creates at the end is man, He creates breathes into man and He creates Adam. And then He breathes, brings Eve along and Adam and Eve in the garden, in perfection. And the Bible would say this, that they walked with God in the garden because a God that created us wants to be with us.

This is the God we serve. And He's so amazing that He created perfection. But then Adam and Eve did the one thing that God told them not to do. They disobeyed. They ate of the tree. They sinned. And as a result, sin now enters the world. And a holy God and sin cannot be together. And so the consequence of their sin is that the relationship dynamic changed. God no longer walked with them. He actually had to remove them from the garden. And now they're in this relationship. They're trying to figure things out. But the God that we serve is so good that He's still making a way. He's still giving access to His presence. And He just does it a little bit differently. A temple gets built. This huge tabernacle temple gets built. And there's this huge curtain that's in. And so most of the people could come into the first couple of rooms. This one room that was beyond the curtain that was called the holy of holies. And in that area was the presence of God. And only one person could go beyond that curtain. It was the high priest. This is like the pastor of the whole people. He would have to make sure that all of his sins were forgiven before he would do that. Now in the Bible, in the Old Testament, sins were forgiven through bloodshed of animals. And so the people would bring animals and they would sacrifice them before God and then the high priest. for his own sense so that he was cleansed so that he could go beyond the curtain, beyond the veil into the holy of holies, the very presence of God. And this was serious. They would tie a rope around these jokers. 'Cause if they went into the presence of God and their life was not right, they would drop dead. And they'd have to drag 'em out of there and they'd be like, we need a new high priest who wants to sign up. And here's what happens. Jesus Christ, who is referred to as catch this, our high priest steps out of heaven, comes to earth, dies on the cross as the perfect sacrifice. Blood was shed for the forgiveness of our sins once and for all. And I wanna read to you, why is this a big deal? Why are you telling us all this Old Testament

animal sacrifice, holy of holies, presence of God thing? Because this verse is huge. Matthew 27, it says, and when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit. He died on the cross. And at that moment, the curtain of the temple was torn into from top to bottom. Meaning that it was a high, like it was like up there, like high, high, high, meaning we can't get up there. It wasn't torn from the bottom of the top, like a man didn't do it, God did it. And in so doing what God was signifying is, because of my son Jesus, I'm now giving every single one of you access into my presence. No longer is it just for the high priest, for one person, now because of Jesus, come on somebody, it is available to all of us because we serve a God who wants to be in relationship with us. If you're grateful for God, say amen. - Amen, amen. So because we have the spirit of God with us, I feel like so often we can approach God. We can approach sitting in his presence kind of casually. I don't know about you, but sometimes I'm just like, God, I know I have access to you all the time. And so there's not always this great reverence

in my heart to know I am sitting down. I don't know that I'm always grasping the magnitude that I'm sitting in the presence of God, that I am sitting with the Lord. I want us to work through a little bit of the life of Moses. We're gonna be in the book of Exodus this morning. And let me give you just a very quick, very brief overview of Moses's life and where we're gonna pick up at in his story. So Moses was born in Egypt, but he was born in Israelite. He was a Hebrew baby. And when Moses was born, Pharaoh was actually murdering all of the Hebrew babies, all of the Hebrew baby boys, because he thought they were gonna overtake the Egyptians. There was gonna be too many of them. And so Moses's mom puts Moses in a basket. If you've grown up in church, you've probably heard this story that she puts him in a basket in the Nile River. And he is actually found by Pharaoh's daughter. And he is born, he is raised in this Egyptian palace with Pharaoh at a certain point. He realizes who he is. Moses runs. And when we pick up right now in his story, Moses is actually a shepherd. And he is tending to his sheep in Exodus three. We're gonna read here in Exodus three.

And it says there, he's tending to the sheep. He's in a field. The angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire, it did not burn up. So Moses thought, I will go over and see the strange sight why the bush does not burn up. I probably would not have gone over to see what was happening. Let's continue to read. And it says when the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush. Moses, Moses, and Moses said, here I am. And then God said, do not come any closer. Take off your sandals for the place where you are standing is holy ground. So this is the first time that God reveals his presence to Moses and he really slows down to walk him through what he's experiencing. He's like, this isn't about a burning bush right now. This is about my presence that has come to speak to you and come to meet with you. Moses shields his eyes at first in fear and he is sitting in the presence of God and God says, take off your shoes 'cause where you're standing right now is holy ground. And it wasn't anything special about the ground. Moses is in a field with sheep. It's just dirt, it's just ground, but it was that God's presence had come

and fallen in that place in that moment. And that's what made that ground holy. It's the same as this building. I love it and it's so very special to me. But this building in itself is not holy when God's presence comes and he fills this building. That's what makes this ground holy. And so God's walking Moses through the magnitude of what it means to sitting God's presence, that where we are standing wherever we are, that this moment now becomes a holy moment going to begin to change me. When I sit in this holy ground and in this moment it changes me. Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians that when we're in God's presence, it changes us to actually become more like God. David said in Psalms that when we sit in the presence of God, we receive fullness of joy. 2 Corinthians, Paul also tells us that when we sit in God's presence, we find freedom. When we sit in the presence of God, when we sit in a holy moment, when we're sitting on holy ground with God, it changes us from the inside out and transforms us to become more like God, to become an image of the glory of God. And Moses continues to meet with God and he goes from being this insecure shepherd to actually becoming a leader who has changed to be more like God. In Exodus 34, Moses goes up to the mountains to meet with the Lord and the people are rebelling Moses is supposed to lead the people to the promised land and they're living in sin and they're rebelling and they're not listening to the word of the Lord. And it says in Exodus 34, Moses is actually spending 40 days and nights with God on this mountain. 40 days and 49s, no food, no water, just sitting in the presence of the Lord. And it says when Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of the covenant law in his hands, he was not aware that his face was radiant because he had spoken with

the Lord. So do we realize what it means to sit in God's presence? It means it transforms us. Moses comes down and he's a different person from when we went up, it says his face is actually shining. He is radiant. Why? Because he encountered the presence of the Lord again and he didn't have anything with him. He didn't have all of the things he just had the presence of God and it changed him. I love this story because Moses, he's just hanging out with sheep. He's just doing his everyday thing and God goes, but I want to get your attention. So he sets this bush on fire that's not really on fire. Moses is like, I want to check that out, classic dude mode, right? Like, that looks cool, let's check it out, fire, come on. And then he gets there and what does God do? He speaks and he calls him by name Moses because God wants to get our attention. He wants to reveal himself to us. And here's the really good news for every single one of you that is a follower of Jesus in this place. You have been given the very presence of God through the power of the Holy Spirit. So what does it mean to be in God's presence? It means to be aware of God's presence. It means to go, I don't get it. It doesn't make sense. If I tried to explain this to somebody that doesn't believe in God, they think I'm crazy. That God's with me at all times. Yeah, no, we're easy. I don't know here. I can't see him.

And he's promised that he's with me, so I know he is. He's the ever present help in our time of trouble. He's our comfort. He's our peace. He's the presence of God through Jesus. And again, if you don't have that, it is available to you today. It's free. You don't deserve it. You can't earn it. God loves you so much. He just wants to pour it out on you. So the second question we have to answer is, okay, this is what God's presence is. Number two, what keeps us, though, from experiencing God's presence from time to time? I could probably list a lot of really, really specific things that hinder and keep me from experiencing God's presence, but I kind of want to just wrap it up into one thought this morning. James 4-8 says, "Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you." This is a promise from God. He says, "Draw near to me, and I will draw near to you." This isn't us saying, "God, please, would you come and be near? Please." That's how begging God for his attention. It's us positioning our hearts and our lives and say, "God, I'm pursuing you. I'm looking to you. I'm positioning my heart to you, and the promise is when I give you my focus and my attention, I get to receive your presence, and I get to receive everything that you are. And so what hinders me from seeking after God's presence is that I'm too busy drawing near to so many other things other than God. It might not always be bad things, but I'm too busy sometimes just drawing near to the things that bring me joy.

I'm too busy making my home here on this earth. I'm too busy looking around at all of the things happening in this world, and I'm drawing near to so many other things that I'm actually neglecting the one thing that can bring me life, the one thing that can actually change and transform my life. And so often I feel like, "God, I'm not even paying attention to your presence, but I'm doing a lot of really good things throughout my day, but I'm neglecting you, and I'm neglecting sitting in the presence of God." What we see in Moses' life is that he's repeatedly going to meet with the Lord. It becomes a habit. It becomes something that is routine in his life, that he is consistently seeking after the presence of God. He went up to this mountain again and again. I don't know how long that journey was and how much effort and energy he had to put, but he was intentional. He's like, all I wanna do is seek after the presence of God and sit with the Lord. He didn't just let that one awesome encounter with the burning bush be the one thing that just fueled him for the rest of his life. He actually let that one moment, that encounter with God's presence, fuel something in him to say, oh, I want more of you, God. I just want more and more of your presence. And so Moses goes up two times, he goes up on this mountain to be with God. Two times he stays for 40 days and 40 nights to sit with God and he didn't let anything get in the way. And I think so often we're a little bit spoiled, right?

Like I get up and I want my coffee and I wanna sit where I wanna sit and I want my blanket and I want all of the things right for me to sit with the Lord. Like I wanna have the perfect environment before I sit down with God. - With the vibes right. - I want the vibes right. I want everything to feel good. And now I say, oh, this is the perfect environment. I want, when I come in here on Sunday, I wanna hear the songs that I wanna hear and I don't want somebody singing too loudly beside me. I want everything to be perfect so that I can sit in the presence of God. Moses is like, I'm gonna go up on a mountain with no food, no water, no set list, no distractions, no nothing and all I'm gonna do is sit in the presence of God. He came down, transformed because he sat with the presence of God. He was not chasing a cool moment. He was chasing after the presence of God and all he wanted to experience and encounter was God's presence. And I think of when we get to heaven, like all of our attention in our focus is gonna be on God. Like everything, he is demanding our attention and we're gonna get to experience everything. But I don't wanna wait until that moment. I don't wanna wait until I get to heaven and say,

okay God, now that there's no distractions, now I'll give you all of my focus and all of my attention. I wanna seek him in as many moments as I possibly can throughout my day to experience the presence of God. James 4/8, a promise. You ready? If you do this, God said he'll do this. Who has to initiate though? God's like, I've already sent Jesus. I've already given you my son. I've already told you how much I love you. I wanna relationship with you. You want more of me? It's available. I've shared this before over the years. I loved wrestling growing up. One of my favorite wrestlers would say this, do you want some? Come get some. That's the Lord. You want some? Come on. All of me is available to all of you, but I need you to draw near. And so even the prayer, I think my wife alluded to that, even the prayer of God, I just want more of you. God's like, don't say it, just do it. Like come into my presence. Sit down, sit down with my words.

Sit down with some worship. Tune out the noise of the world. How many of you got distractions in your life? How many of you are distractions sitting by you right now? Don't raise your hand, don't raise your hand. We all got distractions in our world. We've got to learn to quiet the noise around us and go in this moment, God, I'm drawing near to you. In this moment, God, I'm putting the phone down 'cause my phone doesn't give me peace. You give me peace. I'm turning Netflix off 'cause it doesn't bring me joy. You bring me joy. I could keep doom scrolling and it's not gonna fill me like you can fill me. So we've got distractions, but I'm gonna tell you right now, one of the biggest things that's gonna keep you and I from experiencing the presence of God is sin. And you know this to be true in your own life. And so some of you, you are living in a pattern of sin right now. I'm not saying you struggle from time to time. It's a daily thing and it is affecting your relationship with God and you know it is. Others of you, you're pursuing the things of God in your life, but when you do fall short, you feel that on the inside of you. If we go back to the garden with Adam and Eve, we see it play out in their lives. They're walking with God, spending time with God.

But then they disobey God and they sin and look what Genesis 3 says. The man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord as he was walking in the garden because that's what God did. He spent time with his creation. He was walking in the cool of the day, kind of like today's weather. Come on, thank you, Jesus. But because of their sin, look what they did. They hid from the Lord among the trees of the garden. And we do the same thing, don't we? We fall short, we disobey, we sin. And our first reaction is to hide from God because in that moment, God's mad at me, he's disappointed at me and he thinks I'm a failure. And the enemy comes into those moments of our life. love somebody like you." Man, if these people in this church knew, you probably shouldn't even show up on Sunday with the mess your life's been. Anybody heard that lie before? And the reality is this, we do fail. We're never going to get it right. But God is a God of grace. God is a God of mercy. God is a God of forgiveness. I'll keep going till you all start clapping. God's a God of kindness. God's a God of love. Aren't you grateful for the God that when you fall down, he doesn't go, "What a failure?" He's actually the one that comes and goes, "Get back up, son. Get back up, daughter. And follow after me. I've got better for you over here." The conviction of the Holy Spirit is when you find yourself in sin, the Holy Spirit doesn't go, "You stink." The Holy Spirit goes, "That's death, and God has life." But sin will keep you there. Sin will keep you hiding from God. Sin will rob you of your peace. Sin will steal your worship, and it will affect your relationship with God and others. I want you to get this idea of how sin

tries to creep into your life, and I want you to kind of give me, give me like a fun illustration. My wife and I, we've been married for 20 years. I love this girl. We love to go on date nights. Come on, husbands, wives, date your spouse, okay? It's how you want them over for marriage. Keep winning them over. We'll go out on a date night. I want you to imagine this scenario. If I look at my wife and I go, "Hey babe, I want to take you out tonight." I want, "You pick the restaurant wherever you want to go. We're going, I got the babysitter, kids are taken care of. Let's go only stipulation. Can I bring this other girl with us? Like you're my wife, but she's my side chick. Like she's just going to come along and she's just going to be a part of that. That would probably would not end well. Would not end well. She would be dead. She would be dead. You wouldn't kill me. That's too easy. Let me off the hook. It'd be torture. Yeah. This is God. The Bible says he's a jealous God. He doesn't want to share you. He redeemed you from the pit you were in. He rescued you from the pit you were in of sin. He brought you out of that and he gave you life. And now he says, "And I don't want you to go back to that. I don't want you to pursue the world." So God actually loves it when you look at everything the world has to offer and you choose him. And he goes, "You keep choosing me. You keep running after me." And here's the really good news, grasp this today. That when you do fall short, his grace will cover you, but his grace will also be the thing that gives you victory over that sin. You don't have to go back to it. You are free. In the name of Jesus, you have been set free. And victory is yours. So stop living in the mindset. Well, this is how it's always going to be. No, God's bigger than that. And none of us are perfect. None of us have arrived. None of us ever will until we step into heaven. So your entire life, it's going to be a battle. And sin's going to be knocking at your door. And temptation's going to be coming for you. And you're going to say, "But I want God. I want God. But every once in a while you're going to fall. The grace of God will pick you back up and go, 'You want me? You keep coming after me. Do not let sin. Do not let the devil keep you from the presence of God. The only thing that can keep you from the presence of God is you. He has made

himself available. Draw near. You come to me and you get all of me. Amen? Question number three. How do we, as followers of Jesus, how do we have a heart for God's presence?" All right. So quick recap of Moses' story. We read in Exodus 3. Moses encounters the burning bush. He shields his eyes in fear. God tells him, "Don't come any closer. This is holy ground." And then we're going to fast forward now to Exodus 33. Moses would actually set up a tent when he needed to meet with God. And they caught, he caught it, the tent of meeting. And he would go in. And when the presence of God would come and fall in this place, literally a cloud from heaven would come and it just would hover at the entrance of the tent. And Moses would go inside and he would encounter the presence of God. And so in Exodus 33 it says, "The Lord would speak to Moses face-to-face as one speaks to a friend." And so I want us to see the progression here of the first encounter with God. Moses is afraid. God tells him, "Don't come any closer." He actually shields his eyes in fear. And then we fast forward to Moses seeking after God again and again and Presence got any less reverent from Moses knows is it mean that God was just casually approaching Moses? No Moses continued to reverently seek after God, but it was because he let that in first encounter Change and transform his life. He kept running after God for more He kept realizing that this ground I'm standing on is holy that I'm entering into the presence of God and that led him To a deeper place with God so good to where God was like I'm gonna continue to run towards you and speak to you now like I would a friend Because Moses knew the presence of God was a big deal And he let God continue to change him. He kept coming and God kept speaking It's like me going to Chick-fil-A like it's just good every time And so I just keep coming back again and again. My son actually works at Chick-fil-A now, and he's like mom It's not that great. He's back there making the chicken. He's like, it's all right And I'm like no, but it's great and I just keep coming back for more Moses just kept running back to God for more He knew how big of an impact it was to be in God's presence and he's like I can't get enough of your presence God And so Moses goes to seek the Lord again, and he's looking for direction now He's got to lead the Israelites to the promised land and he's saying God you haven't yet told me who's going to actually go with me And it says in Exodus 33 the Lord replied my presence

We'll go with you and I will give you rest and then Moses said to God if your presence Does not go with us? Do not send us up from here And so what we see is that God's not promising Moses any great purpose or any great three minute He's like I'm promising you right now my presence is gonna go with you. He's not saying I'm sending a great army There's everybody's gonna be there. You're gonna be fine. He says I'm gonna send you my presence and Moses is like I'll go wherever you're asking me to go God, but I will not go if your presence doesn't go He's like doubling down like all right. I know that the promised land is over there But that's not what I'm chasing after right now I'm chasing after your presence and I just want more of you and so here's my challenge for all of us today Are we pursuing God in a way that is like God if you're not in it? I don't want it This relationship might be great, but if your presence isn't in it, then I don't want it This job might be a great opportunity that's gonna provide all the money in the world But if you're not in it God and your presence is not leading me there I don't want to go there. Are we living our life in an intentional way? This is God. I just want to go only where your presence tells me to go only where your presence leads me and Moses doesn't stop there in Exodus 33 18 that Moses says to God now Show me your glory And God says Moses. I can't show you my face. You'll drop dead right now But he says I'm gonna hide you right in the entrance of this rock and God says I'm gonna pass by you And you're gonna experience my goodness when I pass by and he says my hand will actually protect you so that you don't die Right now from my presence and God passes by Moses and he gets to encounter the presence of God once more He was not chasing the promised land Moses was chasing after the presence of God and he continued to be able to lead the people in an incredible way He had a heart for God's presence. May we seek after God not just for what we can get from him But because we want more of his presence base. We know that his presence is everything that we need Oh, I love that so much. I was thinking about the verses that she was reading about Moses going if you're if you're not in this Like we're not going. That is my prayer every Sunday morning that we gather in this place God if you're not here Like I like y'all

You're all right But I don't want to just hang out with you guys. I Want God here with us. I could I could go home in bed right now I want here Ryan you can join us up on the stage I want God's presence because again if it's just us on the stage talking if it's just our band up here singing And we're all just having a good. Oh, this was a good Sunday. That's great. But if God shows up And things start to change He starts to give us vision for our lives He starts to convict us and guide us back to him He starts to relieve some of that anxiety stress and breathe some peace over us. This is what God does How many of you are guilty from time to time maybe in your life and you feel like the only time you go to God is When you need something anybody been there before Okay, you're not raising your hand. You're just a liar and We'll do a whole series on that next month for you We're all guilty of this from time to time where we just Hey God I need something And God's all for that. He'll listen to every needs you have but sometimes he just wants to sit with you Imagine this, if your kids only came to you, they only wanted to spend time with you when they needed something. You'd be like, "Well, now?" My daughter the other day, we opened up the windows because this is the Lord's weather and Free AC, come on. And we were sitting by it at night and she set some pillows up and some blankets and she was like, "Dad, come sit with me." I was like, "What do you want?" She said, "I don't want anything. I just want you to come sit with me."

She sat down and she was like, "It feels like Christmas right now." I was like, "Let's put the tree up. Let's do it." Don't tempt me with a good time. And she was like, "I just want to hang out." And she just started talking to me, "This is God." Yeah, he'll listen to any need you have in your life and he loves it when you rely on him for what you need. But sometimes he's like, "Hey, just come sit with me. Just come be in my presence. Just come read my word. You don't have to read five chapters. Read a couple verses and just meditate on what you read. Just let God know how great what you are for. And I know life gets busy. I know life is hard. How many of you got kids under five years old? Oh, bless your heart. It's hard. You got work. You got school activities. You got family stuff. Life's busy. So how do we prioritize God's presence? It's not like you're going to walk into work tomorrow and go, "Hey, my pastor said that I need to prioritize God's presence, so I'm going to need a couple hours." And he's going to look at you and go, "You can take a couple of days. You're out of here."

How do we do it? We got to find the time. So I love this in Luke 5. It says, "Jesus, let's take a page out of the book of Jesus often." He did this regularly, he withdrew, he got away. He went to a lonely place, and he prayed. He was alone, but he wasn't alone. The father was with him. When you draw away and you get by yourself, you're never alone. God is with you in that moment. You just got to find the time, and you have the time. We all have the time. Here's the reality. Here's how I wrote it down. We don't have to create God's presence. We just have to create space for God's presence. So for a lot of us, it is going to be waking up earlier than everybody else in our home and just going, "God, I'm not at my best right now. The coffee hasn't kicked in yet, but I just want to let you know before I start my day, you're first, and I need you today. And I want to magnify your name. Before I say anything else, God, I need you in my life so that I can be the best person that I can be today. Not more of me, more of you in me. We got to do that often, guys. 'Cause if not, we're going to lose our way too easy.

Other things start to creep in. First thing we do in the morning, we grab for that phone. No, no, no, first thing we do is we reach up for Jesus. I'm guilty of this. And I got to re-prioritize all the time. And I'm grateful for a God that doesn't give up on me. I'm grateful for a God who has made his presence available to me. And all he is is inviting us in. I want to close with this. I just want to teach you how I pray at times. 'Cause I don't do it every time. My best moments of prayer is before I say anything and ask God for anything or whatever, I just slow down and I go, all right. Before I say anything, God, I want to acknowledge your right here, your presence. I can't see you, I don't feel you right now. There's no burning bush in my home, but you are right here. Now, I know the God that I'm praying to is with me. It's an awareness. 'Cause if we get too busy caught up in our day, we'll forget that God's with you. And he's like, "No, I'm with you." So we just want to be aware. Would you bow your head and close your eyes right now in this moment? And all I want you to do is just cultivate an awareness

and just speak it over your heart, God's with me. (gentle music) Maybe let some gratitude even rise up in your heart right now and just go, "Thank you, God that you're with me." Some of you maybe haven't felt the presence of God in a while because of sin or because of distraction. Hey, in your heart right now, would you just ask God Others of you have been experiencing God's presence in a greater way, it's because you're making time, you're pursuing it. Would you just thank Him in your heart right now and say, "God, I don't want to ever take it for granted." You serve a good God, He loves us and He has given us access to Jesus. And if you're grateful for that this morning to say, "Amen, let me close with this illustration." If you're here today and you're a follower of Jesus, what that means is that you are pursuing Him with your life. And as you do, I want you to do this with this in mind. God, you're with me. God, you're with me. God, I want more of you. God, I want more of you. I want more of you. And then one day you're going to breathe your last breath. And you're going to step into eternity with Him. And that, God, I want more of you. God, I want more of you. God, I just want you. God's going to go, "All right, you wanted me? Here I am for all eternity." You understand that? People talk about heaven and hell. And you can read in the Bible and hell is a very real place. And there's a lot of descriptions about hell. It's hot. There's fire. There's crying. There's weeping. There's gnashing of teeth. Can I tell you why hell is miserable? It's because the presence of God is not there. And I'm telling you, the reason there's crying and the reason there's weeping and gnashing is because these people have realized that for all eternity, they are separated from the presence of God. Do you know why there is joy in heaven? Because in that moment, we're going to be so overwhelmed that the presence of God is with us for all eternity. If you're here in this place and you've never given your life to Jesus, He is available to you today. And we want to give you that opportunity every head bowed, every eye closed one more time. It's not an accident that you're here. It's not an accident that you're watching online. God loves you. He wants a relationship with you. And in your heart, you know I need Him. I am living my

own life apart from God. And I know I need Jesus. That's you in this place with nobody looking around. I'm just going to ask you to be bold this morning. I'm going to count to three and I'm just going to ask you to shoot your hand in the air. Raising your hand in the air doesn't do anything. It's what God is doing in your heart. It's your honest confession. I need Jesus. If that's you in this place, when I count to three, just shoot your hand in the air. One, two, three. Anybody in the room today? Praise God. Praise God. You can put your hands down. Praise God. Amen. Amen. Church family, would you look at me? There were some people that were clapping. You jumped to the gun just a moment. But I'm going to give everybody an opportunity to get in on this. If you're grateful for the presence of God that is never given up on you, that loves you in spite of everything you've ever done, would you shout amen? And now can you celebrate with me that there are people in this house today that came in not knowing Jesus, but today? Come on. They're saying yes. Yes. Let's go. Come on. We don't ever take that for granted. It's why we exist as a church. We want to see people love God with all their heart. They can't love a God they don't know. I'm going to invite our prayer team to come take their place. If today you need prayer for anything in your life, these people are available to you. If you want to know more of what it means to be a follower of Jesus. If today you raised your hand, what I'm going to ask of you is when you exit today, stop by our wall in our lobby that says next steps. We have our team there ready to receive you. They want to put a gift in your hands. The greatest decision you could ever make. Want to let everybody in the room know about Wednesday night prayer and worship. Our students gather on Wednesday nights as well. Our young adults gather on Wednesday nights. There is something for everybody. We love you. Rise church. Have a great Sunday. You are dismissed.