Hope Church LV Sermons
AWAKEN :: What made this month special?
It's about 18 months ago that God began to move on the heart of our pastoral team. Before we even moved into this campus, we knew when we came into this facility after being portable and temporary for so many years that we would have some opportunities to do some things that we had not been able to do in the past. And God really laid it on our heart to set aside what we experienced together last weekend. Kind of a mini revival, a two-day worship experience where we could seek the face of God together. We could ask God for an awakening, for a reviving work in us that God may continue to use us for His glory and honor. And as that idea developed and we prayed and we booked the speakers to come in, as we continued to seek the Lord, God continued to open our eyes to what He wanted the entire month to be, not just a two-day worship experience, but an entire month leading up to seeking the face of God for 30 days, leading up to that worship experience. There was a verse that God birthed in our hearts as we prepared for last month, and I want to put it back up on the screen. It's a verse that we cried out together, Psalm 119 verse 18, I want you to read it out loud with me. You ready? One, two, three, open my eyes that I may behold wonderful things from your law. I hope at a bare minimum, leaving last month, that you are focused in a new way. And I hope, leaving last month, that little verse will stick with you. It's a verse that I pray if not daily, almost daily, just as I spend time with the Lord. I use that as a prayer into the presence of God. God, would you open my eyes today? Lord, would you help me to see? God, would you reveal your word to me today? And as we prayed together and we met together and we sought God together with that as our cry, God moved in a mighty way in the last month. I've heard so many of you give testimonies of what God did in your life. So many of you have shared with me how God began to deal with certain areas. If it was an intensifying of your personal time alone with the Lord, or it was an area of purity or holiness that God began to speak into your life and draw you into a deeper pursuit of his very life in and through you. And then it climaxed last weekend, I hope, I hope and pray that you did not miss last weekend. I don't think many of you could have because between the four services that we had over 4,000 people gathered here last weekend to worship God together, but we experienced what I believe is one of the most dynamic two days of worship together that I've ever been a part of in our 11 years together as a family of faith. The spirit of God moving among us, a sensitivity to God speaking into our lives, a freedom of worship that was just everything that we'd asked God for and everything that we prayed for. Now I'm sharing all that with you because the way we do our preaching here at Hope, we normally operate off of what we, back in the back room, call the preaching calendar. We get before the Lord and we pray and we lay out text of Scripture and we know exactly where we're going to go, but we intentionally left this weekend open on that calendar, wanting to respond to whatever God might choose to do in the month of January. We want it to be sensitive to the leadership of the Holy Spirit of God. Next weekend, we jump back into our study through the Book of Colossians. If you're a regular tender here at Hope, you know, we finished chapter one at the end of last year. Next weekend, we pick back up with chapter two and then we're just going to march straight through chapters two, three and four for the next several months, digging into that truth that Paul wrote to us in the Book of Colossians. But this weekend, we felt really impressed to pursue one question. And here's the question of the morning. What made last month so special? I haven't talked to all of you, but I've talked to a lot of you who have indicated just how special the last month has been. As we've met together, as we've opened God's Word, as God has spoken into our lives, well, what made it so special? And we spent some time this week as a pastoral team just really wrestling with that question. To kind of bring this month to a close, I want to share with you four practices that I believe invited God's presence among us in a very unique way. Here's the first one. We set aside time daily to be alone with God. For 25 days, we sent you a daily devotional that we had written. For 25 days, we gave you some scripture to dig into and over 1,500 of you daily went along that journey with us. And hundreds of you would open every day that daily devotional and dig deep into the Word of God. And so many of you have shared your testimony with me about how that devotional has spoken into your life. One man even said, "Pastor, since I've been a Christian, I've struggled. My whole Christian life was spending time alone with God daily, but for the last 25 days, with that devotional, I've been able to every day carve out some time and just be alone with God." Why is that such a big deal? Well, listen to the way Clyde Cranford said it in his book. Look at this quote on the screen, "For centuries, those who have truly sought to know God intimately have founded imperative to set some time in each day to focus their attention and affection on Him." Here's what I want you to hear me say. This idea of a daily devotional time with God, we at Hope didn't come up with that. That's not a new program that has just come out. You go all the way back to Jesus and the Gospels and you will find Jesus Himself, the Bible says, "Getting up early in the morning while it was still dark to be alone with the Father." There is no substitute and the life of a believer for time spent daily alone with God. I want to say that again because it's so important. There is no substitute. Listen to me. There is no shortcut. You have struggles, you have issues, you have challenges in your life. They're parts of your flesh that you're tired of battling. Listen, there's no shortcut. God doesn't send us down lightning bolts and deal with things in our lives. There's no substitute in the life of a believer for time spent daily alone with God. If you leave the last month with nothing else, may you pursue Him daily like you've never pursued Him before. You say, "Well, how did that affect us as the family of faith?" Look at what the Bible says in James chapter 4 and verse 8. I want you to read it out loud. Let's go 1, 2, 3. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. You don't even need me to unpack that, right? I mean, that's pretty self-explanatory. If you draw near to Him, what's He going to do? Draw near to you. As we pursue Him daily, God pursues us. This idea of drawing near to God is a concept that is borrowed from the Old Testament. It's a phrase that is used often in the Old Testament in places like Exodus and Ezekiel to describe the priests carrying out acts of worship before God on behalf of the nation of Israel. They would come near to the presence of God. They would draw near to the temple of God. It was used to describe these acts of worship that were being carried out by the priests themselves. The phrase "draw near" literally means to approach. And here's what it means when James says "draw near." He's describing approaching God in an attitude of personal worship. Hey, I love corporate worship. I do. I love it. I come to all three services every weekend. I love corporate worship. And I don't just sit back there until they get done with singing and then slip out and do my part. I'm standing down here on the front. I stand up the whole time and I sing every song, every service because I love worship. One of the things I love most about this church, I love the way you worship. I love when we come together, there's a freedom to worship. If you worship loud with your hands up, great. If you worship quiet, sitting down, great. Here is a freedom to express corporate worship. But listen to me, corporate worship is not a substitute for personal worship. If the only time you worship God is right here on Sunday, you've missed the essence of what worship is. Worship is so much more than just what we do here on the weekend. Worship is a lifestyle of drawing near to God. And it's interesting the way James says it here in James chapter four. He's not giving us a suggestion. It's actually an imperative, which means it's a command, which means to not do it is sin. To not continuously draw near to God is not just to not participate in a Christian program. To not personally worship God on a daily basis is disobedience to the very God that created James drawing you to himself. I love the way Rick Warren describes it, listen what he says. This is what God wants most from you, a relationship. It's the most astounding truth in the universe that our Creator wants to fellowship with us. God made you to love you, and He longs for you to love Him back. There's a statement in that, our Creator wants to fellowship with us. Wow, here's what that means. The God who spoke everything you can see, taste, touch, feel, or smell into existence. That God desires time alone with you. Why was last month so special? Because I believe more than normal on a daily basis, we were all drawing near to Him. Let me tell you what that means, you and your personal worship affects the life of this church. You see, you're not just a spectator, you're a part of the family. Now how do we continue that? Are you guys going to keep writing devotionals and emailing them to me every day for 365 days a year? Is that what you're telling me, Pastor, great! No, listen, listen. If your 18-year-old was still sitting at the table waiting for you to put a spoon in his mouth, something wouldn't be right. It's cool when they're 18 months, it's not cool when they're 18. We wanted to help lead you into the discipline, but I want to give you two helps as you move forward. Number one, have a plan. Have a plan. You know, one of the reasons you've been so successful for the last 25 days is you had a plan. It was coming into email. You had a plan. You didn't have to think about where am I going today? You had a plan. You need to have a plan when it comes to your daily time alone with God. You say, "Well, what's the plan?" "Well, there's a lot of them." Let me give you a couple of examples. For one, the book of Proverbs has 31 chapters in the book of Proverbs. Most months have 30 or 31 days in a month. You know what I've been doing for about 25 years? For 25 years, not perfectly, but more than not, I've been reading the proverb every day that corresponds to the day of the month. Today's February the 3rd, this morning I read Proverbs chapter 3. Just asking God for wisdom. And as you read through the Proverbs, you're just praying through the Proverb, asking God to give you wisdom in everyday life. That's why Proverbs was written. You can do the same thing with the book of Psalms. Just take the book of Psalms and read a Psalm a day. Asking God, begin with Psalm 119-18, say, "God opened my eyes that I can receive wonderful things from your law," and then daily just read a chapter out of the book of Psalms and just let the book of Psalms begin to speak into your heart. Listen, there are going to be some things you read and you go, "I don't understand that. Listen, I've been to seminary. I have a master's degree. I've been preaching for 23 years. I read some stuff and I go, "I don't get that." But when I'm mowing the grass, not much so much here in Las Vegas, but back in Alabama where I'm from, when you're mowing the grass and you come up on a tree, you don't just quit mowing the grass, you just mow around it. You come up to something in the Bible, you don't understand. Here's what you say, "God, I don't understand that," and you keep reading. You just mow around it. You can take a gospel, the gospel of John. Start in John 1-1 and you set aside 15 or 20 minutes a day. You say, "How much do I read until the 20 minutes is done?" It's not about how chapters or books, it's about spending time alone with God. You can take a devotion too that I recommend to you. One is called My utmost for His highest by Oswald Chambers, one of the greatest Christian devotionals ever written. It's much in line with what we've been doing the last 25 days. If you don't want to buy it, you can get it on line for free atmost.org, U-T-M-O-S-T dot O-R-G, and you can read it every day for free, it's right there online. Henry Blackaby has a devotional called Experiencing God Day by Day, it's on Blackaby.net. You can find it there on the front page, Daily Devotional Every Day. We have some Daily Devotionals available in our media kiosk, if you want to find one back there that fits you, here's the point, have a plan. Have a plan. Number two, get some accountability. Get some accountability. Find somebody in your small group or somebody in your family. Every week, our pastoral team, we meet together, and we have our weekly staff meeting, but we take the first 20 minutes or so of that meeting, and here's what we do every week as pastors. And I want you to know this about us, every week as pastors, here's what we do first thing when we meet. After we pray, we go around the room and we just say, "Hey, man, tell us, where are you in the Word right now? Where are you reading? What book are you reading? And what's God saying into your life right now?" Let me tell you why we do that, because here's what we know. Everything God desires to do through our lives. He does out of the overflow of what he's doing in our lives. And one of the great dangers of being in ministry is you can get so consumed with doing the ministry that you forget that the primary call is not ministry, it's intimacy. And so what we do every week is we hold each other accountable to say, "Hey, where are you reading? What's God saying?" You need somebody in your life who regularly is asking you the question, "Hey, where are you in the Word? What's God saying to you?" It's one thing to just ask them, "Hey, where are you reading?" Because you can just read and check off the box. But if you follow it up with, "What's God saying?" You can't just be reading. You've got to be listening. You've got to be pursuing the heart of God. Let me give you a verse of Scripture. I'm going to skip one. Go to Ecclesiastes 4, 9, and 10. I'll just give them this one. It says, "Two are better than one because they have a good return for their labor, for if either of them falls, the one will lift up his companion, but woe to the one who falls when there's not another to lift him up." It's one thing for you to miss three or four or five days, not spending time with God, and then have to look somebody in the eyes and they say, "Hey, where you've been reading, boy, that's not been a good week." Well, hey, let me encourage you. God wants to be with you. Don't get far from him. It's something all to get a different to miss four or five days, and nobody asks. And miss four or five more, a week becomes two, two becomes a month, a month becomes six months, and then you're trying to remember, when's the last time I spent time with God? Woe to the one who falls when there's not another, not to throw a rock, listen, to lift him up. Why was last month so special? As we daily set aside time to be alone with God, let me give you a second one. We honestly sought God about what holiness looks like in our everyday life. For a month, we ask some really hard questions. Over three weekends, we looked at what the Bible has to say about sin and repentance, and holiness, and personal purity. Look at James 4-8 again, he said, "Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you." But then listen to what he said next, "Clins your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded." That's the rest of the verse. You see, when there's a drawing near to God and God draws near to us, there's always an awakening to personal holiness that we realize the purity and the holiness of God, and God begins to draw us into personal purity and personal holiness. Here's what I'm saying. You cannot get in the presence of God and leave the way you came. When you get in the presence of God, God begins to change you. We looked at several passages of Scripture. One of the passages we looked at was 1 Peter chapter 1. I want to read it again. First Peter chapter 1, verse 14 to 16, here's what he said, "As obedient children do not be conformed to the former lusts which were yours in ignorance, but like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your behavior, because it is written, 'You shall be holy for I am holy.'" And as we unpack that, we understood that God's standard, God's desire for us, is not simply to try and be good Christian people. God desires to manifest His very holiness in our everyday lives, at work, at school, at home, in my attitudes, my thoughts, my actions, my reactions, God desires holiness. And holiness is the byproduct of being with Him. The overflow of that relationship being spilled out in our lives. You see, holiness is not just you and I trying to do a few things that some people have said, this is what, no, holiness is being conformed to the image of Christ. Holy is who He is, and holy is what we become as we are conformed to His image. Now, when we looked at that text of Scripture, I gave you three questions. If you remember a couple of weeks ago, and I know you remember everything we say, so two weeks ago I gave you three questions, but I just gave them to you kind of mentioning them, I want to unpack them just a little bit more this morning. And these are three questions that will help us as we continue to pursue holiness in our everyday lives. So here's question number one, am I being honest with God about everything in my life? Am I being honest with God? You see, here's how we're dishonest with God. We make excuses, or we justify. We're real good at that, Church. Our flesh is great at justification, or we can justify anything and everything. If you just give us enough time and a good concordance, man, we can justify. Am I being honest with God? Let me show you the verse. First John chapter one verse six, if we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. That's strong just by itself. Then he says, but if we walk in the light, as He Himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus, His Son cleanses us from all sin. You hear how that section of Scripture just is saturated with transparency and honesty? Is describing being in the dark instead of just being in the light? Are there things you're trying to hide? You know this, you're not hiding it from God, right? As we lie by trying to deceive others, sometimes we lie by believing a lie and deceiving ourselves. Are you being honest with God? And here's what I want you to think about. Over the last month, God's done some stuff in us, man. I know He's done some stuff in my life where I just had to get honest about some stuff in my life, some boundaries and things that I needed to build into my life to protect purity and holiness. Maybe God's been speaking to you and you've been dodging it and you're thinking, "Man, we made it. I made it through that month and we want to give you one last shot today." Are you being honest with God in your habits? Are there any habits in your life that you're justifying or making excuses for? You know when God knows, He's touched your heart and it's time to yield that to Him. How about relationships? Are you justifying and making excuses for having relationships that you know are not appropriate, especially those of you who are married? Are you making excuses in justifying emotional relationships with people that aren't your spouse and living a lie? Are you getting your emotional needs met other places and you're justifying it and making an excuse for it instead of just being honest with God? You'll never find fulfillment and satisfaction. You will not find what you're searching for apart from conformity to His holy standard. How about attitudes, thought patterns? Oh, that's one we can easily justify. Nobody else knows but me what's in my mind, lifestyle practices. Are you being honest with God? Let me give you a second question. Am I allowing God's Word to be the standard for my behavior? Am I allowing God's Word to be the standard for my behavior? The psalmist said it this way, "How can a young man keep his way pure by keeping it according to your Word? How can a young man keep his way pure? How do we live pure? How do we live holy in an unholy world?" There's only one way, the Word of God. And I want to give you an example, just an example of what I'm talking about. When I say, "Am I keeping the standard of my behavior? Am I allowing God's Word to be that standard?" I want you to turn over quickly to the book of Ephesians, all right? Now, this book, the Bible, is 66 books. It's a big book. We're about to read out a one paragraph which means this is just a small sampling, all right? I want to show you how the Word of God speaks very specifically and very practically into how we live our lives. Look at Ephesians 4 and begin in verse number 29. This is talking about how the Word of God is to be the standard in how we use our mouth. Let no one wholesome word proceed from your mouth. Wow. Now, see, I get in trouble just right there. But only such a word is as good for edification according to the need of the moment so that it will give grace to those who hear. Now, here's how you pursue holiness on a daily basis. Is that my standard? And when we use the word standard, what we're saying is, is that the target that I'm aiming at? I'm not professing any of us is going to be perfect at that. Hang out with me long enough and you'll figure out Besservance ain't perfect at that either. I didn't need that amen, but thank you for it. That's the truth, but here's what I'm saying. What we've done in our culture of Christianity is we've taken God's standard and said, well, that's really not the same. I just want to be better than these folks around me. And as long as the way I use my mouth is better than at least four or five people around me, that's my standard, but that's not letting God's Word be the standard. You say, man, if I start living like that, I'm going to be weird. Listen, this idea of being sanctified means being set apart. It means there's going to be sometimes a godly weirdness about us. It stands out because it's just different. Look at verse 32. This talks about how we forgive other people, be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving each other. Now, we're good up to this point. Listen to the next phrase. Just as God in Christ also has forgiven you, I don't know if you realize it, but his forgiveness is unconditional and unlimited, ours is usually conditional and limited. You see, my standard is not just trying to be a good Christian that goes over and above what most people do, my standard is just as God in Christ, how in the world am I supposed to do that only by his grace? You see what that is is describing what his life looks like in us. Let me give you one more, verse 25 of chapter 5. He moves out of that section and begins to talk about family relationships, and I'll just talk to the guys in the room for a minute that are husbands, verse 25, husbands love your wives. Again, we're pretty good right there. Problem is, that's not where the verse stops. Just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself up for her. Is that your standard? Or have you bought into the cultural norm that it's a 50/50 proposition? We meet each other half way. Well all I know is I'm glad Jesus didn't meet me half way. He went all the way. You see what we're saying? God's our standard. When you read God's word and you see those things in the word, here's what you say, God, that's not who I am, but God, it sure is who I want to be. God, would you continue to draw me to personal holiness? Word question, am I consistently examining the things that influence my life? This is where over the last month God's really been speaking into my life personally. TV shows, music movies, things that were a part of my life that most people would look out and go, that's not bad, but God's been speaking into my life. I want you to hear this quote by Francis Padgett. Francis Padgett was an English theologian in the late 1800s. Look at what he said, it's awesome. The leisure time of life may either be a man's garden or his prison. Do not think that what your thoughts dwell upon is of no matter. Your thoughts are making you. We are two men. What is seen and what is not seen, but the unseen is the maker of the other. Things in your life you struggle with, you me tell you where the real battle is, it's right here. What are you allowing your mind and your heart to dwell on? A couple of verses, I'll give you a new one that I didn't give you the other day. Robert's chapter 4 verse 23 through 26, listen what it says, watch over your heart with all diligence for from it, flow the springs of life. You know what that is? That's exactly what Francis Padgett said. It wasn't Francis Padgett's idea, it was the Word of God. Guard your heart above everything else, why? Because everything in life comes out of there. Then look what he says. He gives us an example, put away from you a deceitful mouth and put devious speech far from you. What is he saying there? He says, watch the heart by guarding what you listen to. Then he says, let your eyes look directly ahead of you and let your gaze be fixed straight in front of you. One of the ways you guard your heart is by guarding what you look at. Then he says, watch the path of your feet and all your ways will be established. He says the way you guard your heart is by being careful where you go. The things that you allow to influence you, what I look at, what I listen to, the environment that I put myself in. He says, if I want to guard my heart, holiness starts way before I get in the moment and I'm dealing with the temptation. Holiness begins by placing godly boundaries. I'm not talking about legalism here, I'm not talking about rules and regulations because for every one of us it's going to be a different set of boundaries based on the way our flesh is wired. But what I'm talking about is a holiness that begins in my time alone with God, where God begins to speak into my life and establish boundaries and parameters that protect the purity of my soul before a holy God. Last month was special because we set time alone daily to be with God. Last month was special because together we began to pursue personal holiness in our everyday life. Last month was special thirdly because we gathered to worship expecting to meet with God. You see over the last month we've all showed up knowing, hey, we got something planned. This is going to be exciting. We got guest preachers coming. David said in Psalm 122, I was glad when they said unto me, let us go into the house of the Lord. Let me ask you a question, do you come to worship every week expecting to meet with God? Let me give you a statement, God spoke this into my heart this week, I wrote it down, put it out on Twitter, I want to give it to you. Listen to it. Here's the point, the way you come to worship affects the way you experience worship. The way you come to worship, you ever come to church and go, hmm, that was just all right. You know what's funny? Somebody else left and went, man, that's the greatest worship service I've ever been in in my life. It's amazing. I'll stand back there some days doing the guest reception and I'll think, oh, that one was a dud. And somebody will walk out and go, that's the greatest sermon I've ever heard. It spoke the spirit of God rained down, there were flashes of lightning, it was just amazing. You know what made the difference? They came ready to worship and I didn't. The way you come to worship affects the way you experience worship. Here's what I'm saying to you, there's only so much this team up here can do in planning and preparing. This isn't a performance, it's worship. You're not the audience, you're participants, you're sitting on stage, God is the audience. Give the fourth one, we got to finish. We did all this together. Together for 25 days, we were devotionally seeking God. Together for 25 days, we were all dealing with these issues of personal holiness. Together we all came expecting to meet with God. We did it together. Let me show you a promise in Matthew 18, look at it on the screen. For where two or three have gathered together in my name, I am there in the midst of them. I don't know all that that means, but let me tell you what I believe. I believe it means God promises a unique manifestation of His presence when we pursue Him together with other believers. God is always with us. But when we've gathered together, when we're pursuing Him together, there's a promise of a unique manifestation of the presence of God among us, and that is what we experience together. While it was last month so special, because we set aside time daily, every day to be along with God, because we were pursuing holiness in our everyday lives. Because we came to worship expecting to meet with God, number four, we did all this together. Now, let me give you two takeaways. It was all Him, along with Him, pursuing His holiness, expecting to meet with Him. It wasn't a program we put together. It wasn't a speaker that we brought in. It wasn't a sermon that we preached. It wasn't a song that we sung. Listen, it was all Him. What made it special was the presence of God. Here's the second takeaway. Oh, I love this one. It's not limited to January. There's not anything we describe this morning that's only good one month a year. You can keep pursuing Him daily. You can continue to set aside time to be along with Him. You can continue to pursue holiness in your everyday life. You can continue to come together, expecting to meet with God, and we can continue both in small groups and in large groups doing this together as a family of faith. May God continue to open our eyes. [BLANK_AUDIO]