Valley Lights Church Podcast
Closer than You Think- Part 1 Fellowship with God
Before we get on with the message for debate, I didn't just want to point out the obvious, which is there's a lot of been happening in our country over the past week, politically. There was an assassination attempt last weekend. There's been a lot of news about who's running, who's not running, and the divided nature of our country only seems to be growing, and so it's only July, and this is an election year, and we've got to make it all the way to November, we don't really know, all that's gonna happen. We don't know what's gonna happen between now and November, or even after November, and many, many people, I think, have been feeling a certain level of uncertainty, especially last weekend, and maybe over this week is more, you know, there's a real desire just to find out what in the world is going on, get any of the news that you can get, but I just want to just pause for a moment as a church, pulls together and pray about all that's going on, and I was working at a Panera this week, and there was a girl, I had her computer, like a ton of books, and I found out she's studying for the bar exam, and I was like, "Oh, she," and she was like, "It's in two weeks," and so, in fact, I see her every time I go in Panera, I think she lived there, and she's like, I was like, "Oh, how's it going, studying?" She's like, "I just need everything in the world, "just stop happening for two weeks, "'cause I can't even focus on my study." And she was referring to all of this stuff, like in politics and everything going on, and I was like, "Yeah, all the current events, "it's just, I'm, I assume it's not helping your anxiety." She's like, "Not at all." And, you know, sometimes it feels, you may have different levels of, you know, emotional reaction to what's going on, but I really, really believe that God gives us perspective from his word, and when we bring our concerns to him, it really enables us to trust him. So, I just wanna read, before I pray, for our country together, I wanna read one chapter, or a few verses from Psalm 33. If you have any stress about what's going on in our country, we've jot down Psalm 33. I'm just gonna read a few verses of it, but here, in verse 13, it says, "The Lord looks down from heaven. "He observes everyone. "He gazes on all the inhabitants of the earth "from his dwelling place. "He forms the hearts of all of them. "He considers all their works. "Basically, he sees everything that's going on "all around us. "And it says, "A king is not saved by a large army. "A warrior will not be rescued by great strength. "The horse is a false hope for safety. "He provides no escape by a straight power." Just pointing out that all the things that people are relying on, people in power, like the elites in those in high positions and authority, they have a lot of things that they're relying on, and it's all nothing compared to the strength of God. And it says, "But look, the Lord keeps his eye "on those who fear him, "those who depend on his faithful love "to rescue them from death "and to keep them alive and family." Now listen to this, we wait for the Lord for he is our help and shield. For our hearts rejoice in him because we trust in his holy name. May your faithful love rest on us, Lord, for we put our hope in you. So this is just a big reminder for us to keep putting our hope in the Lord, regardless of what happens, and to really trust him. He's overseeing it all. So let's just take a minute to pray before we move on with our service. Father God, we thank you so much. You can see everything, nothing that's happening around us and in our world and our country is a surprise to you, and you gaze upon all the inhabitants of the earth. And Lord, our country is really blessed in so many ways by you, and we've had so much stability. Comparatively, when you look at other countries and other eras, we've had so much stability. And I pray now, Lord, that you bring peace to our hearts as we turn our minds and hearts to you. In first Timothy, Jesus says, "To pray for kings and all of those in authority." So God, would you work through the leaders of our country to bring good to our country and to our people and not harm? I pray, Lord, that you keep your hand on the events that unfold so that we may lead tranquil lives in all godliness and dignity. And I pray, Lord, that you've continued to comfort those who are grieving last weekend. There were some lives, loss, and people injured, and people that were really wounded and shaken in a lot of different ways. And the news is just gonna keep traveling fast for the rest of us, but for those who experienced loss, they're not gonna move on all that fast at all. And so I pray that you would provide the healing and the comfort needed that you put people in the right place and give the right words to lead people to the knowledge of you and to be for trust in you. And we thank you that the gospel is your plan. It's plan A. In fact, there's no plan B. And you moving through our world and your hearts as you're transforming lives through the good news. That really is the thing that's gonna make the difference in our world. And so would you use churches and Christians across our nation to boldly share their faith and to let people know about the true hope and the eternal life that we have as we trust in you and in Jesus. Let us be a light in the dark place and for each of us, would you help us to surrender to you each day as news unfolds. Let us continually trust in you. And would you speak to us now Lord, through your word, through the book of First John, which is a very grounding letter. It's something that can bring a lot of peace and understanding our relationship with you. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Well, this morning we're starting a new message series. It's gonna be started by our assistant pastor, Barry Rogers. And so I wanna invite him to come up and move this morning's message. - Awesome. Thanks, Bruce. Good morning, everybody. Good to see you all. Adjusting the height. Cool. All right. Oh yeah. You know, just a couple of things. Don't mind me, I'm just up here. There we go. Test, test, awesome. The other way. There we go. Cool. Well, good morning, everybody. Again, like Bruce said, I'm Barry. And I wanted to start this morning. We're starting a new series. And so I wanted to start with just kind of a story about my spiritual journey. When I was in my late 20s, I had come to a place where I was kind of at a crisis point in my faith. I was really tired of feeling like this constant feeling like I wanted to be closer to God, but not really ever achieving that. I had really made a bunch of bad decisions at this time and I was reaping the fruit of that. So suddenly I had a very rare moment of humility where I was like, you know what? I'm open. I'm open to figure this thing out. I was single at the time. And so I had time on my hands and I decided that basically for a little while, every Friday night I'd go to Starbucks. It's my little date with God and I would spend time with God, whatever that meant. Try to figure that one out. The way I did this was I'd get my coffee. I'd sit pretty much in the same spot every time like I can picture it in my mind. And I would just start to read. And at first, I'm a very goal-oriented person. So I started with books that I could get done quickly. So if anybody's looking to just read the Bible and not feel like, oh man, it's gonna take forever. Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, these are books that are four to five or six to four chapters somewhere in there. So they're really quick, easy to knock out and make some progress. So I started doing that. I read through the Book of Romans, which is a denser book, but a very good book. It took a little while longer to go. I went through Proverbs, which is a little bit, a little more fun, some places. But it felt, sometimes it felt like I was just reading, just reading a book. I'm learning some things. But pretty quickly into this process, I started to discover some things that got me really excited, made me wanna keep going with this exploration. There were things like things that I had heard other people talk about. So if somebody asked me about my faith, I would say, yeah, this is the truth, I know that. But I didn't really know where it was in the Bible. I didn't really know if it was true, or if it was just something that other people had told me. It was suddenly like I started discovering things for myself and going, man, it really does say that. So that was pretty exciting. I felt like it was kind of like an anchor time where I started to kind of build a foundation. And there were some things that were loose that I had maybe a head knowledge of that all of a sudden I started feeling like I could actually see how I could relate to God on this. And maybe I could trust God in mingled into that time. I got this interesting feeling that God was actually speaking to me through this. Has anybody experienced that? Again, I was just like, I was so desperate to really know God's word and get to know him that I just kept going. And so here are a couple things that popped up that he showed me during that time. And I actually thought this was interesting. One of the themes that kept bubbling to the surface was that God sees me. Bruce literally just read a Psalm where twice he talks about God seeing him, seeing the righteous, seeing his people. God really does see us. So as I'm sitting in this Starbucks and I'm feeling like this distance, like is God really close? And all of a sudden you start reading that he sees what's going on. Yeah, it's pretty interesting. I can remember almost being in tears feeling like God was speaking to me through this. Here's another one. Proverbs 15, three, it says, "The eyes of the Lord are in every place, keeping watch on the evil and the good." So whether I was evil or good at that time, you know what? That means God had his eyes on me. He has his eyes on us right now. Another one that meant a lot to me was Hebrews 4, 13, which says, "Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of the one who we must give an account." So there's two examples. Again, Bruce gave me a third one with Psalm 33, but actually for a little while I had a little notebook and I would just write down every time I saw a verse that even gave me a hint that God was watching. And it was a real comforting thing. I really do believe in that moment if it was just coincidence, there is absolutely no way it was coincidence. I could see that God was assuring me that He was there with me. Just in a plain old Starbucks in Alhambra, California, He was with me. Here's another one. In Romans, when I was in the book of Romans, I got to Romans chapter eight, verse 33. And there's a couple of times, and if you read the book of Romans where you could get stuck in feeling like, "Oh man, this is kind of a slog. I don't really understand." This was one that spoke directly to me where I was at that time. It says, in Romans 833, "He who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all, how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?" And it was just such a reminder. At that time, I was wondering, God, you know, when I pray, does it really matter? When I pray, do you hear me? In God, I have some, I have needs and things that I'm trying to figure out. Like, I'm worried about, are you gonna help me out with these things? In here, I get this verse that He says that the one that didn't even spare his son, if He gave us His son, sacrificed His son for us, what couldn't we ask Him for? What wouldn't He give us? That one was a hard one. I remember bawling my eyes out in Starbucks reading that one because I was like, you know what? I don't care what anybody thinks. This is awesome. Like, God loves us so much. He didn't spare his son. How would He not want good things for my life? This was an exciting time in my spiritual development because I was just kind of free to see what God said to me. I wasn't looking for something in particular. I wasn't reading the Bible for some end other than I really just wanted to meet God. So I kept seeing these things. God was definitely speaking to me this time and it was powerful because I believed that God was involved in my life. I believed that Jesus Christ had died from my sins and I was saved by putting my faith in Him and Him being the boss of my life, the Lord of my life. But this started to make me feel like He genuinely was over my shoulder. Maybe not just like over my shoulder, but He was with me. He's right here with me. That experience is something that if anybody tried to shake my faith, they couldn't take that away from me. I was personally experiencing God. Has He never do you experience something like this? Where He's real. He's really there. And He's not just speaking to us, He's speaking to you. I don't think you would come today if you weren't interested in meeting with God, connecting with God. Maybe you've been at the same place that I was at the beginning of this where you're saying, "You know what, I do, I want to be with God. I feel like He's near, but I would love Him to be closer. I'd like to feel closer. I hear that one all the time. I'd like Him to feel closer." And there are gonna be a lot of reasons we don't feel close to God. So a couple of these that we'll probably talk about today is one is God just seems distant. Like He's far away in, you'd really like some assurance that He's here with you. We've got hope for you today with that. Maybe you feel like there's something between you and God, a block, some barrier. Maybe it's a sin, but it's something that you feel like is stopping you from being close to God. Like if it wasn't for this thing, then me and him would be good. We would be close. We'll talk about that. Or maybe you feel like you aren't important enough. God really doesn't want anything to do with me, or you have this vague sense that God doesn't want anything to do with you. Or maybe you've been following God for a long time and you've tried this out, but getting time with God and fellowshiping with Him is hard with your busy schedule. Or you've tried it and it just kind of like has faded out every time you do it. I've definitely been there. Hopefully this series will challenge us all to try this one more time. If you've kind of fallen off, getting time with God or meeting with God, looking to fellowship with God, hopefully this will be an encouragement to you. In this series, we're, like Bruce said, we're gonna be looking at the book of 1 John, which is a short letter. So again, if you're looking to get on the horse like I was looking for a quick win, you're in luck. We're going through a short book, which is really good. And there's three key things that we're gonna explore that will really help you if you want to not only feel close to God, but know that you're close to God. So today we're gonna look at something that you could do today, if you wanna try it out. You could do it today that will guarantee to help you feel close to God or know that you're close to God. So before we dive into first John, I wanna zoom out and look at three things that are pretty important for understanding this very short letter. The first one is, the book is first John and it was written by John. It's really easy, man, we're getting in there. To clarify, this is John the disciple of Jesus, not John the Baptist. If you read the gospel of John, that one gets you really confused right off the bat 'cause it talks about both of them pretty quickly. John is a really interesting one. If you read his gospel, it sounds very different than the other gospels. And the things that I've learned about John, it makes you feel like it's probably because of this guy's relationship with Jesus. One of the nicknames for him was the disciple of the Jesus love. That's a bold nickname. He was also the youngest disciple. So they say he's probably, he's the only one that didn't die a martyr's death. So just kind of interesting. Just thinking a little bit more, if it wasn't enough that he was called the disciple that Jesus loved, when Jesus was on the cross, he entrusted John with the caring of his mom from the cross. So he's up there and he entrusts Jesus to watch over his mom when he leaves. That's pretty bold. I love my mom, I'm really close to my mom. I'm not trusting her with just anybody. If I needed somebody to care for her, I'm sending in my closest friends. He was there at the transfiguration, which literally was a very interesting situation where he got to experience a physical, close experience with God that very few, I mean, three people besides Jesus got to do in this case. But he was there for these really special things. So this guy was close to Jesus. He walked with Jesus before and after the resurrection. So it's not just like he followed Jesus and said, "Man, he was just a good teacher, "I followed him all this stuff." He was there, he knows what it's like when you think your friend has died, and then it turns out he's alive again. He knows what that's really like, not just from like a head knowledge, he was there. He knows how excited he was when he found out that Jesus was still alive. Here's another one, something I was just thinking about as I was studying this. He knows what Jesus smells like. Kinda interesting. You know, when you're really close to somebody you do, like I know what my dad smells like. You know, like when you're really close, you know what a person smells like. You know what, he knows what Jesus' sense of humor was. I don't think about that very often, but I know the sense of humor of my wife, I know the sense of humor of our pastor. You know that when you're really close, you know what they're like, what their personality's like. So this is the guy who's so close that I wanna know, if he knows something that could help me get closer to Christ, I wanna know what this guy knows. So that's the first thing. And he wrote other books, I would encourage you to read 'em. But it's pretty awesome to see the consistency in the way that he writes. So you see that a lot in 1 John. The second thing is, why did he write this letter? Basically, this letter was written to encourage people who had decided to follow Jesus. So these guys are already believers. You know, every given Sunday at our church, we have people that are on all the spectrum of faith, people who have been following for a long time, people who are just trying to figure out where they stand with Christ. This book was written for people who had already made that decision, but this is really something that, there's a lot here that can help all of us. So it's written in a way for encouraging those believers and also to help them work through some opposition that they were starting to have. Some people who had left their church and were trying to teach some very false things about the nature of Jesus that he wasn't, that he wasn't the son of God. Some really bad teaching about sin, that it was okay. You want you to become a believer. Sin is irrelevant. You just keep going on doing with whatever you want. Doesn't really matter. And so John is trying to fight these things. So that's kind of why this book is written. So there's a lot of things that if you're looking to shore up your faith, trying to figure out what we believe as Christians, this is a great book for you. And then finally, the final thing that I just wanted to like clarify, because this could get a little confusing. If you picked up the book of 1 John today and you said, "Hey, I'm gonna start reading this thing," it can get a little confusing because you'll kind of see that John is like talking about something and then all of a sudden, whoa, wait, we're on to sin now we're talking about love and our brother and then we're talking about our place in this world. And it can get kind of confusing. But as I realized, the order is just, it's not random. So here's a picture of something that might help you organize the book of John in your head, it's a lasagna, okay? Holly and I picked out this beautiful piece of lasagna. There's a, depending on your view of lasagna, lasagna is a delicious meal. It'll fill you up. So hopefully this is a good picture of lasagna, an enticing picture of lasagna. This is what the book of 1 John is. As you're reading through, you're gonna see he covers a subject, the cheese. Another subject, the pasta. Another subject, kind of like the sauce. But then he'll come back to that subject again. So it's not spaghetti where you're kind of all over the place, John, because I kind of felt that way when you first start. It's one thing. And to go deeper with the lasagna analogy, it really is one thing. It's a lot of different layers, but it is one concise thing. And the way John talks about all the subjects that he covers, they're all deeply tied together. You can't have one without the other. And this is kind of one of the reasons why this is so encouraging in our faith is because we realize that it's all important to God. He loves you and he wants to make sure that we know all of this, that it's not just kind of part of it. Well, I'm just gonna kind of believe, but we're gonna miss out on the benefits of all the other aspects of our faith. This is all one thing. So hopefully we got it lasagna, the book of John. There you go. Y'all gonna be reading through later and going. He doesn't say anything about lasagna. What was that all about? But hopefully this is gonna be an encouragement to you. So let's read the book of first John chapter one, one through four. So four verses to get us kicked off for this series. And it says what was, or he says, what was from the beginning, what we have heard and what we have seen with our eyes, what we have observed and have touched with our hands concerning the word of life. That life was revealed and we have seen it and we testify and declare it to you that the eternal life that was with the Father and was revealed to us. What we have seen and heard, we also declare to you so that you may also have fellowship with us and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his son, Jesus Christ. We are writing these things so that our joy may be complete. So what was he witness to? This is the beauty of this book. He's starting off with an eyewitness account. So if you've ever wondered like, did people actually see Jesus Christ or are there eyewitnesses that we can rely on about the life of Christ? John is one of them. What he says is what was from the beginning? Who was from the beginning? God, the people who were opposing John in this book, they have a real problem with this whole Jesus being God, they were really confused by that. And so they were just like, well, this is easy. Just leave the Jesus part out. We can just have salvation without Jesus. So that's a problem. So John is trying to really stress this. So from the beginning, he says, the one that I'm talking about here, he was from the beginning. So who was from the beginning? Well, God, but Jesus was from the beginning. What we have heard, what we have seen with our own eyes, what we have observed and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life. The word of life here, John talks about Jesus as the word, like God's word going out. God's message about how much he loves us and the eternal life that we can have is through Jesus Christ. So he uses this kind of terminology, the word of life. If you read the Gospel of John, you'll see that word being used. So that's who he's talking about. And he's saying, hey, this word of life, the message that we're talking about, that we talk about here a lot, I saw it. I was there. I touched him. I saw him with my eyes. He observed him not just he saw what he was doing, like he saw Jesus feed 5,000 or he saw Jesus perform a miracle, but he saw the way Jesus treated people. He saw the way Jesus did his ministry. He knew exactly the way of Christ in a way that we often feel like we don't get that close of a view. So he's saying, that's who we're talking about here. He saw that in that life was revealed. We have seen it and we testify and declare to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was revealed to us. And he's just clarifying there again. In case you haven't gotten it, he was with the Father and he was also with us. This is really, really important so that we can understand that he's talking about God here, Jesus Christ, that he experienced in his life. So what he's seen and heard, he declares to us why. He's declaring this to us because he wants to give us an opportunity to come into something that's just really great. It says, to have fellowship with us, so fellowship with him in his relationship with God. In the word for fellowship that's used in this scripture, it's a word that we don't use a lot, fellowship. Why do we use that weird word? Why don't we just say meet with God or whatever? Well, the translators are the Bible. We're trying to come up with a word that catches the fact that this isn't just like an appointment with God or an appointment with each other. Like when we come here for a church service, yeah, we're meeting together in the sense of we've got a time and a space and we get together. He's trying to explain there's something more going on here than just us being in the same room together or meeting together as a church together. There's fellowship happening. And the word there that they use is koinonia. It's a Greek word. And the idea is not just, hey, these guys were a bunch of friends or these guys were meeting together or they gathered together. Well, I guess kind of a little more gathered together, but sharing together. So the koinonia that we're talking about here, the fellowship that we're talking about, is that they share together in something. So that's a really fun thing about this church. We stress, we talk about relationships a lot. They're really, really important because what God wants to build here at Valley Lights and really all churches is a place where we can share. We can share in the encouragement of knowing Christ. We can share the gospel with one another. We can share what God has taught doing in our lives. We can share when others are having trouble. We can share with one another. And we can give and receive correction from scripture. There's all these things that we can share in. What John is talking about here is he wanted to make sure to declare what he'd seen and heard because he wanted us all to share in this great relationship he's seen with Christ. And he says, indeed, the fellowship that he's talking about here isn't just fellowship between us. He's talking about a fellowship that's with the father and his son, Jesus Christ. So again, he's making sure everybody knows if I'm talking about fellowship with God, Jesus is part of that. Like we're not just, it's not just this God that's far off, like it's God the father and God the son are together. So all the haters out there need to realize that Jesus is part of this picture. But what I wanted to highlight for us here today, and this is the first blank. I always forget to fill in the blank. So here we go. We can have fellowship with God. If you just read that on the paper, that might just be really stale, but I wanna say it as exciting as possible, we can have fellowship with God. Whoo, that's the way John would have said it. We could have fellowship with God, and this is a great joy. So he clues it by saying, he wants to make his joy complete because this guy has seen what an exciting thing and a thrill that we could have fellowship with God. And you can have fellowship with him as well. So there's a lot here in this book that we're gonna go over to talk about that's how John pulls together, how fellowship with God ties into other areas of our faith. But I wanted to point out a couple things, and I've actually put them in your handout, some things that are benefit. So let's say you've said, you know, that sounds good. I'd like to have fellowship with God, but you know, I need a little help here. What would actually happen if I had fellowship with God? And I got really excited when I was studying through this because John just lays it out for you. There's several places where he talks about having fellowship with God, like what happens if you do that? He also talks about like, what happens if you remain in God, which really that's part of it too. You're remaining in God, his words in you, he's affecting the way you do your life. All this kind of stuff. What are some of the benefits of fellowship with God? Well, John lays them out here. I wrote all these out rolling in a cover three because I will just leave this as a cliffhanger. You can study this on your own. It is actually pretty exciting to see the kind of things that John lays out here, but maybe you've tried having fellowship with God. You go, I am just so busy. I got all these things I've gotta do. This list might help you get over that hump of realizing, oh man, I gotta prioritize this thing. I am not cashing a check or you're not cashing in your ticket to one of the best experiences of your life if you're not having time with God. So what are some of the benefits of fellowship with God? The first one is in first John, one five through seven. I realize I sometimes put this stuff on here and I'm only doing five and six. So I'm just gonna answer that question because I know I wrote one five through seven, but again, study for yourself to find out why I put the other one on there. But it says, this is the message that we have heard from him and declare to you, God is light in him. There is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out of the truth. So this is one benefit. If you have fellowship with God, you get to not just have like a second hand knowledge vaguely what people say about God, but you genuinely can know and understand for yourself what God is like. The Bible speaks over and over about his character in a lot of different ways. I really love John the way he describes God because you can tell this is a guy that really walked closely with him. So I wanna copy off that. If I could cheat off of John, I wanna know what did he know about walking with God? And as I was reading this, it just really encouraged me because as we struggle with sin in our life, as we don't do things God's way all the time, it's really, really encouraging to not give up on the standard that God has set for us because there's so much good that comes from, from emulating God, from being like God. So reading that God is light, I realize, you know what, sometimes there's darkness in my life. And again, we'll talk more about that next week. But I honored God for that. He's holy, he's perfect, he is light. So I wanna know more about what is that like when you're holy, when you're light God? So that's one benefit. You can know more about, understand who God is for yourself. The second one is in 1 John 2, 28, you can have confidence that you're on track with him. Maybe you're at a place in your walk with God where you go, you know what, in my own track, in my off track, if I wanted to get back on track, what would I possibly do? Here's a good example. He says in verse 2, 28 says, "And now, dear children, continue in him "so that when he appears, we may be confident "in unashamed before him at his coming." So if I've ever felt like I was off track with God, one thing that I can do, I might have blown it at this point in my life on being perfect, we know that, but I could get on track, I can continue in him. How do we continue in him? John talks over and over. We can have confidence as we live according to his word, as we obey his commands. Okay, if I do that, I can be confident. I'm on track, I'm getting in line with what God wants. That confidence is really, really, really encouraging. So that's another reason why I'd wanna have fellowship with God is that I could have confidence that I'm still on track with him. Here's another one, this should be really encouraging to all of us, but it could also be one that it's really, hopefully a personal thing. Clarity, I want God thinks of us. Have you ever wondered that? What does God think of you? Like right now in your life, what does God think of you? Here it is, first John three, I'm just gonna do three three. It says, see what great love, or sorry, three one, see what great love the Father has lavished on us that we should be called children of God, and that is what we are. The reason the world doesn't know us is that it did not know him. So that's encouraging. He doesn't just call us like acquaintances, or oh my employees, or my slaves, or something like that. He calls us his children. And again, I'm just reading these things. It could be easy for you to hear this. Maybe you're at a place in your life where that doesn't hit you, or maybe this is just rock in your world, like realizing that God really does want you the way a parent that's actually excited about their children, wants them, loves them. He cares about you. He wants to know what's going on in your life. So I've provided some more verses and topics. So if you wanna take that to study those and see what the Bible says about it, it's really, there should be really encouraging to you. But I'm just saying, this is one book. First John is just one book, five chapters, and I just got all these points about what it's like having fellowship with God. If we expand this to the whole Bible, there's untold treasures of the things that God has said he will do for those people who spend time with him, who have fellowship with him, who walk with him. So it's really exciting. And again, I'm continually, I constantly run into things where I've had burdens for years. I just turned 40 this year. There's a lot of things I've been reflecting on, just things in the past. And it is shocking to me the number of times that I'll have a time with God in the morning. And he will open my eyes to something that I go, I have been worried about that, or I have felt bad about that for a decade. I've felt like I needed help in this area for years. And then in one moment, God shows me a scripture that unlocks the truth on that element, on that issue. And I've seen this over and over. So, hopefully it's an encouragement. Let's do this. How would we do this? How would we have fellowship with God? And if we're working to get started on fellowship with God, the area I'm always gonna go back to is spending time in his word. Because I think that this is the bedrock for fellowship with him, because a lot of times, in my younger days, I would say, "Oh, I'm gonna start by praying." And you should pray. Pray today, pray often, pray all the time. One of the problems, though, that I've had is that I have a lot of ideas about God. And some of them are not true. I have ideas about myself. I have ideas about my family that are just not true. So I need help. And God's word has this really powerful way of not only giving me sight, clarity, things that I haven't seen that, oh, I wasn't really paying attention to that. But that seems like that's important to God. Things that just aren't even on my radar. But it also has a way of anchoring me in something that it's not just my big ideas, but it's actually, it's what God wants for me. So that's where I would say to get started. And the rest of this, we're going to talk specifically about having a morning time with God, or a time with God. Some people call it quiet time. I just was never been that quiet of a person. So I call it my time with God. Call whatever you want. But the idea here, the reason I want to stress this is because what I've experienced is that, if I say I'm going to spend all the days of my life in fellowship with God, that is a good goal. And I am still working towards that. In one day, when I come face to face with Christ, I will look more like him than I did when I was younger because I've been walking with him. But if I don't say, listen, this day is not going to get away from me without me spending time with God. In some form or fashion, the number of days that fly by and you realize you haven't come in with him, it's insane. I mean, we just had-- we had our third kid this year. There were times where I wasn't having time with God. And it showed up. Honestly, I've experienced that. And I think one of the things that I've really-- and probably one of the reasons I can admit that here today-- is that I have just a commitment at this point in my life where I say, I know I'm going to fall off, but I always get back on the horse. I'm always going to be getting back on track with fellowship with God. So all that to say, people have a lot of different things that they say about having fellowship with God. Here, I'm just going to throw out some just highlights of approaches I've heard to people doing this. I've had my friends that were scholars. So they go in for their time with God, and it's all head and almost no action. They know a lot about the Bible, but they don't really do it. I'm not really interested in that. There's also, like, the historian. I was this for a long time. The person who knows a lot of vague things about the Bible and maybe has had an experience with God in the past, but nothing's really going on now, and they don't really do anything with all that stuff that they had learned in the past. Here's another one, the speeder. The person who goes through the Bible so quick, and they've covered it all, and they can say, I read that book, and I read that book, and I read that book, and I read that book, but they never slowed down to get off the highway and see what the gas stations are like, or see what the parks are like, get in the neighborhood, see what the people in that book are like. They went so fast. I actually have listed off a dozen different of these, so I'm not going to go through all of them. But there's a lot of different ways that we can try to approach it. I'm going to share today, though, what I've found that works for me, and maybe it's helpful to you. Maybe you find some that are better or work more for your schedule. But the first one I'm going to say here in the area of best practices is, start your day by meeting with God. Now, you read that and you go, oh Barry, you're a morning person. I am not. I am not a morning person. I have become a morning person over the years because my wife is a morning person, and that's the only way we see each other. I mean, I've been this way my whole life. I love 1 a.m. I love 2 a.m. They're great times of the day. And I sometimes am very awake during those times. We have kids, so again, sometimes we're awake on those times anyway. But what I've found is that when I say, okay, for a little while I would do lunchtime time with God. The day gets rolling and by lunchtime I'm too busy. Or I'm going to have quiet time in my car after work before I go home. Okay, you can do that. When I start my day by meeting with God, it happens. And then I can say, I did it. It's not just to check the box, but like literally, that's the way it works. Like if you don't do that, then weeks go by and you haven't done anything. So that's my first suggestion. The second thing is, don't do this in bed. This one's taken me a long time. There is a fine line between consciousness and unconsciousness. So for me, meeting with God, I'll give you the couch if you want to, 'cause that's where I do it a lot. I do sometimes my office, I get there early enough to beat traffic that there's no one in the building. And so I can sit at my desk, the fluorescent lights, make it to where I don't, you know, I don't know. It's just a real, it's a sterile environment, but I focus. It really helps me focus. But if you're in bed, you know, at your own peril, the next thing, the next thing I would say is, pick a book to go through when you meet with God. So the only reason I say this is just so that you have something that you know, if nothing else, your brain is dead from the day before, you're busy, you know where to go back to. So for right now, I've been gone through the book of First John for like two months now. It's great, but there's a lot of different books that you could go through. Before that, I went through the book of John. And then all last year, I was on the writings of Paul. And weirdly enough, we named our kid Paul, because we spent a lot of time with Paul last year. But pick something, find what works for you, yeah, never mind. We'll just, that's a good enough for that. Then have just a simple plan of action. This could go a couple different ways, but I say read a short passage. In my mind, one verse is generally not enough. But two paragraphs for me starts getting a little too long. So if I could say a paragraph, that's about as much as I can chew on and really think about. You should sometimes read broadly, but like, it's just really helpful for me just going little by little, because I can really see what is God saying here? What should I be doing? What's something that maybe I'm not doing that I should be doing? So read a short passage, pray for God to speak to you through His Word, and then write something down that you can do with what you read. So keep it simple, nothing crazy. Sometimes this takes 10 minutes. Some takes it takes 30 minutes. There was a time when I was much, much younger where I was like, I'm going to read the Bible in one city. And you may get 20 chapters done in one setting, but you might not meet with God for three years after that. So doing this has made it a lot more doable than I can do this over a long period of time. And the things that I usually write down are thoughts about my kids, thoughts about my wife, thoughts about things going at work that I don't feel like line up with what the Bible, what God is saying through His Word, and then things that I want to ask God for. Those are all things that I write down. And then the final one is just, again, the one that's probably more important almost than any of these has been getting back on the horse when you realize you've fallen off, because I've fallen off so many times. So what I'm describing here is taking some time with God daily. And again, may it be that this kind of thing is a catalyst for a life that is completely upended by God, that He so changes the way we think, the way we act, the way we love people, the things that we do, that fellowship with God just becomes the way of life, whether you're on vacation, or you're at work, or you're with your family. Fellowship with God is all part of that. But this is a simple tool to get started. So maybe today you start with this, try it out, and see what happens. Maybe God speaks to you in something that if you did it, it would be an immeasurable blessing to your life, that it would change everything. That might happen today. You could do that. You could have fellowship with Him. Like I described earlier in the message, when I first started trying to put this together, there were days where it really was, like I was just reading information and that sort of thing. But over time, He was speaking to me. He was meeting with me. We were having fellowship. I would greatly encourage you to just try this out, because over time, you'll just be aware of a lot of things that you were ignoring that God is trying to say to you. So what would happen if you opened this line of communication between you and God and allowed Him to just speak? What would He say to you? This is basically what we're saying here is, if you haven't nailed this down, this is a great time during the summer. We try some different things or whatever. Open the line of communication. What would God say? What would be the joy that would come into your life as a part of this? Again, John said that. That dude knew Jesus. So if He says that there's some joy that could be added to our life, I'm curious. I'm curious what God is gonna say to you. 'Cause I know what He said to me, but I think He's gonna say something to you. And as we wrap up today, I would say, if you're still not sure where you stand with God, this series, we're gonna be talking a lot about closer, being closer, knowing how close you are to God. One of the biggest reasons after reading the book of John that you realize, if you don't feel close to God, it may be because you've not yielded everything to God. These people that had fallen away from the church, they hadn't done that. And they had a lot of crazy ideas about what the church is. We all have crazy ideas, but these guys, they clearly were not completely given over to Christ. If you do that, you will have fellowship with God. So we could talk about that afterwards, or you can indicate that on your connection card, if you'd like to have more information about what it would mean to give God your whole life. And then there are two more things that kind of fall into this category of why things might not be close with you and God. And so this is gonna be the teaser for the next layers of the lasagna. God, there's two more things that may be reasons why you don't feel close to God. So we're gonna talk about those next week, but just wrapping this up, there's a couple next steps that I'd like you really to consider. One of them, the first one I wrote down there is, and they're not on here. Okay, so write it down, because they're not on here. I'm glad I looked at the page. The first one is try this out today, what we've talked about, literally try it out. You could do the plan that we're talking about, just see if that helps you. And you could do it with First John, which would make it really easy, 'cause you don't even have to pick the book. That might be something that would be really helpful for you just to get this going. And then you will know that you had fellowship with God, 'cause you did it, you got started. The next thing would be to read First John this week. Again, oh sorry, next that. Read it over the next two weeks, 'cause we're gonna be doing this series this Sunday, next Sunday, and the next Sunday, so it's two weeks. First John, I am a slow reader, and I can do it in an hour. But if we study, let's say a couple verses a day, two weeks, that'd be really easy for you to make a big progress in spending time with God around First John. So try it out, read First John. Let me know what you think. And then finally, you've done this before, and you know you're kind of at that stage where you're kind of just off the horse. I would encourage you to try it one more time. Get back on the horse, confess to God, hey, I haven't been meeting with you, but you're my Lord, you're my boss. I want you to have a voice in my life. I'd love to have fellowship with you. Tell him that, he will meet you where you're at. So hopefully those next steps are helpful. Let's close in a word of prayer. Dear God, we thank you so much for your word, that you clarify these things to us, that you help us to see, and God, I pray, that you would help us to join in with the joy that John experienced in having fellowship with you. And I pray that you would help us to be a church that is characterized by people who have fellowship with God. And I pray that you would show yourself to our church as people take these next step and try it out. We pray this in Jesus name, amen.