Latest / The OneCry Podcast / #229 Times of Harvest: Preparing For and Stewarding Nationwide Revival

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#229 Times of Harvest: Preparing For and Stewarding Nationwide Revival · The OneCry Podcast

0:02
Speaker0: One of the things we need to tell our people is that times of Revival Awakening.
0:10
Speaker0: Call for times of continued holiness and repentance.
0:17
Speaker0: Welcome to the One Cry Podcast, a nationwide call for spiritual awakening.
0:23
Speaker0: The goal, accelerating the movement of God through sharing revival truth, stories, and reports.
0:33
Speaker0: Well, welcome once again to the One Cry podcast. I'm Bill Eliff with Kyle Reno.
0:39
Speaker0: And last week, Kyle, we were talking about this incredible spiritual awakening
0:47
Speaker0: that is beginning across our nation and in some ways across the world.
0:54
Speaker0: We're hearing reports from other nations.
0:58
Speaker0: I think, Kyle, to put this in perspective, COVID I don't think was a random
1:06
Speaker0: event in the great scheme of God's sovereignty.
1:10
Speaker0: I think COVID brought the world to a stop for six weeks.
1:17
Speaker0: And brought us to an end of ourself. I mean, we lost our health,
1:22
Speaker0: wealth, government, you know, entertainment, sports, all that stopped.
1:29
Speaker0: And even in the churches, it kind of stripped us of all the things we were looking
1:34
Speaker0: at to make us feel good about ourselves.
1:37
Speaker0: And it brought us to a real desperation and need, which has to happen before we'll turn to the Lord.
1:49
Speaker0: And it brought about increased prayer. So we had seen increased prayer leading up to that moment.
1:55
Speaker0: And now we've seen really accelerated prayer that's happened since that moment.
2:01
Speaker0: And now what we're seeing, Kyle, all across America and in reports around the
2:08
Speaker0: world is spiritual awakening happening.
2:11
Speaker0: It's lost people just coming to Christ.
2:14
Speaker0: Right. And believers that are just bolder than they ever have been to share
2:19
Speaker0: Christ with other people.
2:20
Speaker0: Has that been your experience as you've watched it in your church and city?
2:24
Speaker0: And I know as you work with men across the country in the Better Man movement,
2:30
Speaker0: you're seeing unbelievable harvest.
2:34
Speaker1: Yeah. Yeah. I think that, honestly, probably playing into the sovereign timetable
2:40
Speaker1: of God, the Lord used COVID for sure to slow us down.
2:44
Speaker1: And you got to think for those that are not of the faith and five years ago
2:51
Speaker1: that it started reminding people of our.
2:55
Speaker1: How fragile we are that life is like a vapor you
2:58
Speaker1: know and then so many things have happened in our culture
3:01
Speaker1: and society that's just made us embrace
3:04
Speaker1: rightly in the church and those that are outside of the kingdom but both come
3:09
Speaker1: into places of embracing our desperation for god that we need him and for those
3:15
Speaker1: that are specifically outside of the faith man they're asking the question And
3:20
Speaker1: where can I put my hope and it will last?
3:24
Speaker1: Where can I have hope for eternity after I die, but also hope in my everyday,
3:29
Speaker1: which we know for those that are followers of Christ, we have the answer in Jesus Christ.
3:34
Speaker1: We have the answer in the work of the kingdom of God.
3:37
Speaker1: And so I think all of those things have made ready the hearts of humanity in
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Speaker1: a way that is primed for awakening.
3:44
Speaker1: People coming home, coming in the kingdom of God. And so we're for sure seeing that here,
3:50
Speaker1: which is it is called for me as a pastor to make some some adjustments in how
3:56
Speaker1: I believe and pray and evangelize and to believe that God's at work in an expedited way.
4:03
Speaker0: Well, just, Kyle, think of a farmer who has, he's plowed up the ground,
4:10
Speaker0: he's planted the seed, he's watered it, he's worked it all through the summer,
4:15
Speaker0: and then all of a sudden comes a harvest time.
4:20
Speaker0: And just think about the ridiculous...
4:25
Speaker0: Nature of what would happen if he just, he sat in his recliner and watched TV
4:32
Speaker0: while the produce just, you know, died on the vine.
4:39
Speaker0: I mean, no farmer's going to do that.
4:42
Speaker1: Right.
4:43
Speaker0: But harvest time calls for some adjustments in your life.
4:49
Speaker0: And I think this is what we're talking about. And we started talking about this
4:53
Speaker0: last week. If you missed that podcast, you ought to go back and listen to it.
4:57
Speaker0: But we said and we're trying to help all of our listeners prepare for this,
5:03
Speaker0: because I've been saying for over a year, We're kind of in the foothills of
5:09
Speaker0: spiritual, a nationwide,
5:12
Speaker0: maybe worldwide spiritual awakening. We're not in the foothills anymore.
5:16
Speaker0: I think we're in a time of real revival and spiritual awakening.
5:21
Speaker0: Listen, it may not have come to your area yet.
5:25
Speaker0: But it's coming.
5:26
Speaker1: That's right.
5:28
Speaker0: And just like a time of harvest, it comes to different sections of the field. And I think it's coming.
5:35
Speaker0: So how do we prepare for that? How do we get ready? What do we do?
5:39
Speaker0: And we mentioned three things last week that we need to be really prepared to do.
5:46
Speaker0: Number one, when the harvest comes, pray bigger prayers.
5:51
Speaker0: I mean, you're seeing things around you that just startle us. Let's ask God for more.
5:57
Speaker0: And the harvest time of spiritual awakening gives us faith to believe God for
6:04
Speaker0: more and to pray big prayers.
6:07
Speaker0: And then secondly, it's a time for a bolder witness, right?
6:12
Speaker0: I mean, when the harvest is coming, it gives believers the ability to say, you know what?
6:21
Speaker0: I've been timid about sharing the gospel, but I think now if I shared the gospel, people would hear it.
6:26
Speaker0: They'd have ears to hear it. And it seems like they're responding.
6:30
Speaker0: And they are. You don't have to be fancy with this.
6:35
Speaker0: You don't have to come up with some slick little program to share the gospel.
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Speaker0: Just begin with a sincere statement about what God has done in your life and
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Speaker0: then ask them if that's ever happened to them.
6:49
Speaker0: If they lean in and want to know more, just tell them how they can give their
6:54
Speaker0: life to Christ like you gave your life to Christ. You might be shocked.
6:58
Speaker0: And how God has gotten them ready and what he's been doing on the other end
7:03
Speaker0: of that, because it's harvest time.
7:06
Speaker0: And then we talked about Kyle having a ruthless focus.
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Speaker0: I mean, harvest, you don't sit in your house and watch Gunsmoke.
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Speaker0: You know, you don't just goof off.
7:19
Speaker0: And during this season, revivals and seasons of spiritual awakening don't last forever.
7:27
Speaker0: Right. Their first season so that the harvest can be done,
7:31
Speaker0: that the church can be revived, and it brings us back up to a new level so that
7:38
Speaker0: we can move out and do the mission of God in ways that we haven't done in the past.
7:44
Speaker0: So we ought to realize that.
7:47
Speaker0: And, you know, I was thinking last week when we were talking about this,
7:50
Speaker0: Kyle, about Mary and Martha, that, you know, Jesus is sitting in the den of their home.
7:58
Speaker0: And Mary, recognizing this, runs to Jesus, sits at his feet and listens to his word.
8:06
Speaker0: Martha was distracted by all these things.
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Speaker0: And because of that, she was worried, bothered, angry, whining, upset.
8:15
Speaker0: And Jesus said, Martha, it's not time for that.
8:19
Speaker0: You know, right now, Mary's choosing the one thing that's necessary.
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Speaker0: So don't you think, Kyle, when harvest comes? Yeah, we just we need to choose
8:31
Speaker0: that. We need to get it on the harvest.
8:34
Speaker1: Right. Yeah, it's to put our hand to the plow and not look back.
8:39
Speaker1: Let's take our hand to the sickle more so probably than anything and swing it
8:44
Speaker1: in faith to believe that God is gathering people to himself.
8:47
Speaker1: But it's going to call for not focusing on some other things.
8:52
Speaker1: And so we've got to just be ruthless in that.
8:54
Speaker1: And I think we need to, you need a band of brothers and sisters to remind you
8:58
Speaker1: of that. Like, no, no, no. We're going to keep going after mission.
9:01
Speaker1: We'll keep going after people. We're going to keep, we're going to keep,
9:04
Speaker1: and I'm looking at, we're going to keep personally evangelizing.
9:07
Speaker1: We're going to keep walking people into God's presence.
9:10
Speaker1: I mean, Bill, like for us here, I feel like God has given us the invitation back.
9:18
Speaker1: I feel like our people believe again in the power of the invite.
9:23
Speaker1: Like, hey, if I can just keep praying, if I'm sharing faithful in cooperation,
9:28
Speaker1: if I can get them into a Sunday gathering, I think Jesus will save them.
9:34
Speaker1: There's faith for it. And guess what happens? People are getting saved.
9:40
Speaker1: Lives are being changed. So there's this faith equation, praying,
9:44
Speaker1: you're bold in it, you're inviting people into God's presence.
9:48
Speaker1: And the truth is Jesus is still the Savior of people that you're surrounded by. Get them to him.
9:56
Speaker0: Back in 2011 when we had this five-week crisis,
10:01
Speaker0: event that happened, unplanned event that happened in our church where we went
10:05
Speaker0: three and four hours every night for five weeks.
10:09
Speaker0: People, the room was packed every night because people didn't want to miss what God was doing.
10:16
Speaker0: And they knew, and they were bringing their lost friends because they knew if
10:21
Speaker0: they got them into that environment and they started hearing the stories that
10:27
Speaker0: they would be saved and they were.
10:31
Speaker0: And you just think about, I'm sitting here thinking about the Welsh revival
10:36
Speaker0: where for nine months every church, every church in every city in Wales was
10:42
Speaker0: filled almost night and day.
10:45
Speaker0: I mean, the coal miners would get off work in the morning and go to the church
10:49
Speaker0: and it would be filled with people.
10:51
Speaker0: And they would worship and pray and the gospel shared and people were being
10:56
Speaker0: saved. When that environment is going on, which is an unusual,
11:00
Speaker0: extraordinary moment, you don't miss it. You don't miss it.
11:05
Speaker0: And, you know, the Bible says in Proverbs 10, 5, he who gathers in the summer
11:12
Speaker0: is a son who acts wisely. But he who sleeps in a harvest is a son who acts shamefully.
11:20
Speaker0: It's a shameful thing for a son.
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Speaker0: A harvest going on and he's back in the barn. Wow. You know,
11:26
Speaker0: sleeping in the hayloft.
11:28
Speaker0: And so we put our hands to the plow. Now, I tell you something else that this
11:33
Speaker0: reminds me of that we ought to be ready to do in times of harvest.
11:38
Speaker0: And that is to vigorously tell the story.
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Speaker0: You know, one man has said that the fame of revival spreads the flame of revival.
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Speaker0: Stories of what God is doing over here and over here and over here.
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Speaker0: And on social media now, I'm seeing these stories of what God is doing,
12:03
Speaker0: particularly among Gen Z.
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Speaker0: You know, they're coming back to church far more than the boomers.
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Speaker0: They're buying Bibles at record rates.
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Speaker0: They're surrendering to mission. I mentioned a few weeks ago that in the Southern
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Speaker0: Baptist Convention and our mission agency, which is one of the largest in the world,
12:24
Speaker0: that the pipeline for missionary applications is up 500%.
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Speaker0: Well, I need to tell that story. If I hear a story like that,
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Speaker0: if I see it on social media, I need to hit share. Right.
12:41
Speaker0: And send that to as many people who God may want to take it to.
12:45
Speaker0: And he's in charge of that because there's something about hearing that story
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Speaker0: that spreads that story.
12:53
Speaker1: Right.
12:53
Speaker0: The fire of revival.
12:55
Speaker1: Yeah. Yeah. I think, you know, you have to be so careful with numbers and with
13:02
Speaker1: even careful with testimonies, because do you want this to be known so that
13:07
Speaker1: you look good or your church looks good?
13:09
Speaker1: But, you know, we have raised a lot of services and baptisms.
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Speaker1: And what we've come to believe here is on the other side of somebody's testimony
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Speaker1: of how they came into the kingdom from whatever brokenness they come from is
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Speaker1: someone in the room that God wanted to hear it.
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Speaker1: Because the Lord's not just working in
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Speaker1: their life in their obedience he's working
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Speaker1: in the life of somebody else that he wants to hear and
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Speaker1: what we got to do our part is to help
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Speaker1: foster the environments to where the life changing stories that Jesus has worked
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Speaker1: are being rightly recorded and made known so that he can use that story in the
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Speaker1: life of somebody else that can connect to it In some way, somebody's going to connect.
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Speaker0: And, you know, Kyle, let me just put a little parenthesis in here to explain something biblical.
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Speaker0: And that is people see right now during this harvest moment.
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Speaker0: All these people just spontaneously getting baptized, like at these college
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Speaker0: events, the Unite Us movement that has seen over 120,000 students gather in basketball arenas.
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Speaker0: And thousands of those kids have come to Christ and immediately gone out into
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Speaker0: the fountain and gotten baptized.
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Speaker0: Right. Now, that may rattle your cage a little bit. You may say,
14:39
Speaker0: well, that's not the way we do that.
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Speaker0: You know, and they, well, you know why they do that is because the Bible says it.
14:47
Speaker0: Do you know in the Bible, every record of people being baptized was immediate?
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Speaker0: Every single one. It's never, well, they were saved. And then six months later,
15:03
Speaker0: when they've gone to a series of classes and we've approved their salvation, they were baptized.
15:09
Speaker0: That's not I can prove that to you biblically. There is a meeting.
15:15
Speaker0: And why is that? Baptism is an expression and a testimony of what God has just done in my life.
15:24
Speaker0: And so everybody in the arena, everybody in the room hears that testimony.
15:31
Speaker0: That bold testimony, God has just taken me from death to life.
15:37
Speaker0: And we ought to be okay with that because it spreads the flame of revival.
15:42
Speaker0: Here's another thing that I think we need to think about.
15:46
Speaker0: As we think, and particularly pastors, Kyle, I think we need to properly understand.
15:56
Speaker0: I mean, God is sovereign. He does what he does. But as pastors, we're shepherds.
16:01
Speaker0: And so we need to help steward these moments, right?
16:06
Speaker0: And we better do it in accordance with the will of God. And one of the things
16:10
Speaker0: we need to tell our people is that times of revival and awakening call for times
16:19
Speaker0: of continued holiness and repentance.
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Speaker0: Norman Grubb was a missionary in Rwanda during a nationwide revival in Rwanda
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Speaker0: that lasted for 20 years. He wrote the little book, Continuous Revival,
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Speaker0: which everybody ought to read. You can get it.
16:41
Speaker0: And they asked him, what sustained that movement of God for so long in Rwanda?
16:47
Speaker0: His answer was very simple. He said, we kept the roof off and the walls down.
16:54
Speaker0: The roof off and the walls down.
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Speaker0: Nothing between us and God. So if at any moment we sense that we had sinned
17:04
Speaker0: against God, we had quenched his spirit, we had grieved him,
17:08
Speaker0: we were very quick to immediately come and repent and confess our sin before
17:15
Speaker0: the Lord and get it right with God in the same way.
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Speaker0: If there was any person that we had offended or that we had a difficulty with
17:27
Speaker0: or that that we needed to be reconciled, the Bible is very clear.
17:32
Speaker0: Jesus was lay your lay your offering down and get up, go be reconciled,
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Speaker0: seek to be reconciled to your brother.
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Speaker0: So we kept the walls down all the time.
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Speaker0: So Satan did have, what this does is Satan,
17:46
Speaker0: you give Satan no room to get in to your church, to get into your life,
17:53
Speaker0: to get into your small group, to get into your marriage, because you're right
17:58
Speaker0: with God and you're quickly and
18:02
Speaker0: aggressively seeking to be right with each other. Roof off and walls down.
18:08
Speaker1: Wow. I mean.
18:10
Speaker0: That's part of sustaining revival.
18:12
Speaker1: Yeah. Well, you think, man, I want to be positioned to be a part,
18:17
Speaker1: not a hindrance to what God wants to happen in these days.
18:21
Speaker1: And, you know, a guy we love so much, Steve Gaines, I'll never forget,
18:28
Speaker1: left a huge mark on my life in light of personal holiness.
18:33
Speaker1: When I came to O'Christ, Gardner First Baptist, real move of God, little revival.
18:39
Speaker1: So many people being changed. So many people being saved, baptized.
18:43
Speaker1: Me being one of them a couple of years later, hired on staff.
18:46
Speaker1: You know, everything's new to me. And I'll never forget this, Bill.
18:49
Speaker1: He was on a fast. I knew that, that he was fasting and seeking the Lord.
18:53
Speaker1: And we prayed at seven o'clock together as a staff. And he stood in front of
18:57
Speaker1: us and he just had the glow of God on him, man.
19:01
Speaker1: And tears coming down his cheeks. He said, I just want you guys to know,
19:06
Speaker1: as of this moment right now, I don't know of anything that's between me and
19:11
Speaker1: God or anything that's between me and somebody.
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Speaker1: And it's a freeing place. dude i watched
19:17
Speaker1: the lord that day and it was in such humility
19:21
Speaker1: like it was so genuine it was
19:24
Speaker1: like the word of god rolled through him like a
19:26
Speaker1: river yeah yeah because there's nothing in the world hindrance yeah yeah no
19:31
Speaker1: hindrance and the lord showed me something that day like hey he's gonna have
19:35
Speaker1: to do that all over again tomorrow he's gonna have to stay clean all those things
19:39
Speaker1: but he showed me a principle of the kingdom you know it's the second timothy
19:42
Speaker1: part of uh set apart as holy useful faithful to the master,
19:46
Speaker1: prepared for every good work, that our holiness does matter. It matters.
19:52
Speaker1: It matters a lot in light of anointing and usefulness for the kingdom of God.
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Speaker0: Well, you can, I think if you have the ability to do it.
20:03
Speaker0: You could trace the waning of seasons of revival and awakening again.
20:11
Speaker0: I think there's something about we can only sustain so much.
20:14
Speaker0: I mean, we can only take so many new believers into the church and then kind
20:21
Speaker0: of relax a little bit and spend some time discipling them, perhaps.
20:26
Speaker0: But God knows that. And but but I think we could probably trace the waning of
20:33
Speaker0: revival always to someone,
20:37
Speaker0: some people, some group, some family that begins to quench the spirit, just says, you know,
20:44
Speaker0: I've had enough of this.
20:48
Speaker0: And I'm going to kind of rest and and just turn on the TV and go back to what
20:54
Speaker0: I was doing before. And God says, okay, well, you know, you'll get what you had before.
21:00
Speaker0: And so press in. I think the word is during this coming season of harvest,
21:08
Speaker0: keep pressing in in holiness.
21:11
Speaker0: Keep pressing in in repentance and confession and clearing your conscience with all men.
21:22
Speaker0: So continued holiness and repentance.
21:25
Speaker0: Let me mention two more things, I think, Kyle, that I think need to be said right here.
21:33
Speaker0: So we need during harvest bigger prayers, bolder witness, ruthless focus,
21:40
Speaker0: unrelenting work, continued holiness and repentance.
21:43
Speaker0: But also, and I don't know how to say this, Kyle, maybe you can help me,
21:48
Speaker0: measured biblical openness.
21:52
Speaker0: Now, what I mean by that is when God brings nationwide revival,
21:57
Speaker0: it's not going to come just to your denomination and know us for no more.
22:03
Speaker0: Right. I mean, it's not that big.
22:06
Speaker0: Heaven is not full of denominations.
22:10
Speaker0: Heaven is full of one family who've been all redeemed by the blood of Christ.
22:17
Speaker0: Now, here on Earth, we have this temporary season where we've got all of our
22:22
Speaker0: little doctrinal differences.
22:25
Speaker0: And, you know, some of them are not little, and some of them are vitally important.
22:31
Speaker0: Some of them are worth dying for.
22:34
Speaker0: And I get that. I mean, the substitutionary work of Christ on the cross,
22:39
Speaker0: salvation by faith alone, right?
22:42
Speaker0: The inerrancy of the scripture, that it's written by God and maintained by God.
22:49
Speaker0: I mean, these are things worth dying for, but there are a lot of things that aren't worth dying for.
22:55
Speaker0: And I'll never forget talking to a pastor who was in a city that was seeing a measure revival,
23:01
Speaker0: And it started with a group of inter-denominational group of pastors that were
23:07
Speaker0: so desperate and didn't know what to do. They just started praying together.
23:11
Speaker0: And God united their hearts and a movement began in that city.
23:15
Speaker0: And he said, we didn't eliminate our differences.
23:20
Speaker0: We just prioritize them.
23:23
Speaker0: We didn't eliminate. We didn't just throw out our differences in terms of our
23:28
Speaker0: different churches. We just put them in the right place. We just prioritize.
23:33
Speaker0: And so you may believe in, here's one, speaking in tongues,
23:39
Speaker0: you know, or you may believe in this little issue over here,
23:45
Speaker0: or you may believe that the way to do it is this way, and I believe a little
23:49
Speaker0: bit differently from that.
23:51
Speaker0: That's fine. Do you believe in the gospel?
23:53
Speaker0: Absolutely. Do you believe in the word of God? Absolutely.
23:56
Speaker0: Do you believe in the work of Christ, salvation, my faith?
23:59
Speaker0: Absolutely. And you're my, we're gonna be in heaven together.
24:02
Speaker1: Right.
24:04
Speaker0: And I'll never forget one time, one of my dear friends, Doug Small,
24:10
Speaker0: he took up a whiteboard and he said, you know, when you're in a time of harvest
24:18
Speaker0: and he started drawing these lines all over the whiteboard, he said,
24:22
Speaker0: that's not the way you harvest a field.
24:23
Speaker0: He said, if you've ever been in a farming community,
24:28
Speaker0: they'll get the combines and they join together and they go across that field
24:34
Speaker0: in a very symmetrical and systematic way.
24:39
Speaker0: And so we've got to put our shoulders together.
24:43
Speaker0: And there's something about a measured biblical openness that during Harvest
24:50
Speaker0: Man, we're all out in the field.
24:52
Speaker0: We're all seeing lost people saved.
24:56
Speaker0: And if you want to do your church a little different, that's fine.
24:59
Speaker0: I'm not going to spend time because there's no time for that. It's Harvest Man.
25:05
Speaker1: Man, listen, I heard a pastor not that long ago, Bill, he's in Britain.
25:12
Speaker1: By the way, God's moving in powerful ways and written in different pockets.
25:16
Speaker1: But he had a promise from the Lord for revival for the city that he's in and a real awakening.
25:23
Speaker1: And he was spending time with the Lord and he was more of a charismatic guy.
25:27
Speaker1: You know, and he's spending time with the Lord and he's praying and believing
25:31
Speaker1: and asking and sensing that it's so.
25:34
Speaker1: And he said the spirit of God just stopped him and said, would you be said his
25:40
Speaker1: name to him? You said, say it's Pete and Pete, would you be okay if I started
25:45
Speaker1: it at the Anglican church?
25:47
Speaker1: And and he and he said he didn't like the what he felt because he wasn't OK with it.
25:55
Speaker1: And and and then he he got to a place where he had to repent before the Lord.
26:01
Speaker1: And then he did a bold move, bro.
26:04
Speaker1: He went to that pastor that he knew but didn't know, you know,
26:09
Speaker1: and went and said, would you allow me to come and pray for you and pray that
26:15
Speaker1: God would start revival in our city?
26:17
Speaker1: At your church wow and he
26:20
Speaker1: said i knelt at the altar at that
26:23
Speaker1: church and prayed that revival was started
26:26
Speaker1: in our city and that god would use that pastor in
26:29
Speaker1: that church yeah and he said he said i'm telling you
26:32
Speaker1: what happened he said something broke in me something broke
26:35
Speaker1: in me and and he and he said he stood up
26:38
Speaker1: which is awesome he said i stood up and he said i
26:41
Speaker1: sensed the Lord say now I can trust you now I
26:44
Speaker1: can trust you he said and what happened was what happened
26:47
Speaker1: was he said and then both of our churches took
26:51
Speaker1: off in kingdom work both of them did he said and then I said I got a best buddy
26:57
Speaker1: in the work out of the thing and and what he said we did we believe some things
27:02
Speaker1: differently he said but we both believe the gospel we both believe the word
27:06
Speaker1: and And we let those other things prioritize ourselves.
27:08
Speaker1: And now we're both a part of shepherding in this move of God.
27:12
Speaker0: I thought that's beautiful. Well, can you imagine, I mean, most of us didn't
27:17
Speaker0: grow up in agricultural communities.
27:20
Speaker0: Can you imagine what it was like
27:22
Speaker0: in the old days when all the farmers in a community would join together,
27:31
Speaker0: And you didn't have all the equipment we have and et cetera.
27:34
Speaker0: And they would join together in harvest time. And they put it together and they
27:40
Speaker0: all rejoice that this field was harvested and that this field was harvested.
27:44
Speaker0: And they sat down and had a big harvest meal together.
27:48
Speaker0: And I'm telling you, during times of spiritual awakening, real harvest.
27:53
Speaker0: That's right. That's what we need to do. And we need to prioritize our differences.
27:59
Speaker0: And one final thing that kind of is in the same vein, but is we need to have
28:07
Speaker0: the freedom to embrace new wineskins.
28:13
Speaker0: You know, Jesus said, you don't take new wine and put it in an old wineskin
28:19
Speaker0: because the wineskin will burst and you just lost everything.
28:24
Speaker0: And I studied that one time. I really did a detailed study of,
28:30
Speaker0: you know, what goes on in a vineyard and how they grow their grapes.
28:34
Speaker0: And I don't have time to talk about it here, but it's fascinating.
28:40
Speaker0: But I had also studied it because I had experienced something in the Jesus movement in the early 70s.
28:49
Speaker0: And that was I watched with my own eyes churches who said, I know that God's
28:57
Speaker0: saving all these hippies.
29:00
Speaker0: And but they are wanting to come into my church and they don't even,
29:04
Speaker0: they got these bell-bottom pants and they don't wear shoes and some of them
29:09
Speaker0: smell a little bit and they all want to bring their guitars and we don't do
29:12
Speaker0: guitars, which is so funny to think about now in our,
29:17
Speaker0: culture, but we don't do guitars.
29:19
Speaker0: I watch literally churches say no to the harvest because they wouldn't alter
29:26
Speaker0: their wine skin just a little bit and things that don't matter,
29:32
Speaker0: things that don't make any difference whatsoever.
29:35
Speaker0: And boy, if that's your view.
29:39
Speaker0: Then go off and sleep in the hayloft because the harvest is going and God needs
29:47
Speaker0: men and women and leaders particularly.
29:50
Speaker1: Yeah.
29:51
Speaker0: We will say now evaluate carefully. I mean, you just have we're shepherds and leaders.
29:57
Speaker0: So there may be wineskins that somebody wants to bring into the church and there will be.
30:03
Speaker0: I mean, it'll be not only we're not talking about this, but the harvest time
30:08
Speaker0: is also a time of Satan's greatest activity.
30:12
Speaker0: But we need to. That's why the Bible says don't quench the spirit and don't
30:17
Speaker0: despise what God is saying.
30:19
Speaker0: Examine everything carefully and throw out the bad and hold on to the good.
30:24
Speaker0: But there are times when we just need to say, you know, God is raising up a new wineskin.
30:29
Speaker0: And we're going to go with the flow, man.
30:33
Speaker0: And we might find that that new wineskin is the next wineskin for the next 50 years.
30:39
Speaker0: God wants to use to hold and to dispense the wine.
30:45
Speaker1: Yeah, the whole point of a wineskin is to hold the wine, which is the picture
30:52
Speaker1: of the work of the Spirit and the movement of the kingdom of God.
30:56
Speaker1: And our allegiance is not ultimately to the wineskin anyway it's to the life
31:03
Speaker1: of the vine that comes pouring through
31:06
Speaker0: And I'll add one more to that it's not just to hold the wine it's to release the.
31:11
Speaker1: Wine that's good can
31:13
Speaker0: You imagine a guy coming down the road in Judea and he's,
31:16
Speaker0: about to die literally of thirst.
31:19
Speaker1: Wow.
31:20
Speaker0: And an old vineyard keeper has got a hundred wineskins full of the best wine.
31:27
Speaker0: And he says, I'm dying of thirst, man. Can I just, he said, man,
31:30
Speaker0: you've come to the right place.
31:32
Speaker0: I've got the best wine.
31:34
Speaker0: Come in here and look at it in my barns. And he shows them these hundreds of wineskins.
31:39
Speaker0: And he says, well, that's great. I like your museum. I just want to drink.
31:44
Speaker1: Yeah.
31:44
Speaker0: I'm sorry, you can't have a drink.
31:48
Speaker0: You know, I'm going to give you a drink. So that's ludicrous.
31:53
Speaker0: So in our churches, why do we have these programs and ministries and the things that we do?
32:00
Speaker0: It's to hold the wine, but then release the wine to people who are dying of thirst.
32:07
Speaker0: Well, Kyle, I think we could just go on for hours about that.
32:12
Speaker0: But I want to challenge our listeners to just give some real thought.
32:19
Speaker0: If you have leaders in your church, elders, staff members, whatever it is, pull them together.
32:27
Speaker0: Listen to these two podcasts and talk about what I hear. Here's a question I
32:33
Speaker0: asked a guy in Denver, Colorado the other day.
32:36
Speaker0: I said, what if God, it was a church of about 1200 or so. So I said,
32:41
Speaker0: what if God gave you a thousand new believers in the next 12 months?
32:46
Speaker0: And he looked at me and he said, well, I said, well, what would you do?
32:50
Speaker0: How would you happen? Because I think it's very possible. I know several churches
32:54
Speaker0: where God has given them a thousand new believers in the last. What are you going to do?
33:00
Speaker0: In a few minutes, Kyle, I heard him talking to one of his staff members and
33:04
Speaker0: he said, what would we do if God sent us a thousand new?
33:09
Speaker0: And he said, I want to talk to our staff about that. Well, that's that's great leadership.
33:16
Speaker0: So pull your leaders together and talk about this and get prepared for the harvest
33:23
Speaker0: because it's coming to your city.
33:26
Speaker1: That's right.
33:27
Speaker0: Kyle, why don't you pray that in for it.
33:30
Speaker1: Can you? Yeah, man. Yeah. Well, let's enter in together.
33:33
Speaker1: And if the Lord's speaking to you and you just need to get along with him,
33:38
Speaker1: we'll see you next week if you need to.
33:40
Speaker1: And just go ahead and go pray. but what I would love to do is just pray that
33:44
Speaker1: this would saturate and soak all of our hearts Father thank you
33:49
Speaker1: For what you are saying and lord my faith is more full than at the beginning
33:53
Speaker1: of this podcast because i'm i'm watching your handiwork i see how you are drawing
34:00
Speaker1: people to yourself lord i i see
34:03
Speaker1: the wooing of the spirit right now in the hearts of so many that are far from
34:07
Speaker1: god and hear the stories and the testimonies and we just say lord whatever way
34:12
Speaker1: we best position ourself We want to.
34:16
Speaker1: We want to be a part of it. Whatever adjustments in the wineskins,
34:20
Speaker1: whatever ways that we approach it, Father God, whoever we need to better partner
34:25
Speaker1: with in line of seeing cities reached and states impacted,
34:30
Speaker1: nations touched, Lord God.
34:33
Speaker1: We open our hands to you, Lord Jesus, and say, fill it.
34:38
Speaker1: Fill our hands with the right tools and the right way of embracing your work,
34:43
Speaker1: Lord. for the sake of the future of the faith, future generations of the faith, Lord.
34:49
Speaker1: So I pray even now, Lord, that you would do exceedingly abundantly,
34:55
Speaker1: more than all we could ask or think in light of the harvest that has come and
35:00
Speaker1: is coming. And I pray in Jesus' name. Amen.
35:05
Speaker0: Amen. Well, thanks so much for joining us.
35:09
Speaker0: And again, let other people know about these podcasts. Maybe this last two weeks,
35:16
Speaker0: you know, somebody or two or three weeks, you know, somebody that needs to hear
35:20
Speaker0: this and let them let them know about it.
35:24
Speaker0: And then join us next time, because, you know, Kyle and I, we're just going to keep going here.
35:31
Speaker0: We hope you join us in our pursuit of god and his presence in revival and spiritual
35:40
Speaker0: way we'll see you next time.
1:43:11
Speaker1: Well, hey, welcome to the One Cry podcast. I'm Kyle Reno with Bill Eliff,
1:43:16
Speaker1: my brother from another mother. How are you doing over there, buddy?
1:43:19
Speaker0: How could you Alabama flash?
1:43:23
Speaker0: By the way, I was just recently with Kyle's brother, Zach Reno,
1:43:31
Speaker0: who is a pastor in Morris, Alabama.
1:43:33
Speaker0: Emma, and I had the unbelievable privilege of driving down Reno Lane,
1:43:42
Speaker0: which is a little short street. Is it street?
1:43:47
Speaker0: The little street that they grew up on, and it's not very long.
1:43:54
Speaker0: But anyway, and I saw the house I grew up in, and I was coming out,
1:43:59
Speaker0: and I told Zach, I said, hey, pull over here. I want to take a picture of the
1:44:02
Speaker0: sign that says Reno Street. Take a picture of the sign.
1:44:06
Speaker0: I sent it to all my elders back at our church.
1:44:11
Speaker0: Where Kyle and Zach both served in two churches of our family churches in the past.
1:44:19
Speaker0: And they started talking on the elder thread saying, what are all those bullet holes in that sign?
1:44:28
Speaker0: And they began to tell stories of what they figured those bullet holes came
1:44:34
Speaker0: from, from the Reno brothers.
1:44:35
Speaker0: So anyway, I just want to tell that little historical bit of understanding so
1:44:42
Speaker0: you'll know who you're listening to on the OneCraft.
1:44:47
Speaker1: Hey, true story one time.
1:44:50
Speaker1: I was in light of Reno Brothers.
1:44:54
Speaker1: I was sitting watching the History Channel. I know you're a history buff.
1:44:58
Speaker1: You love that kind of stuff.
1:44:59
Speaker1: I was watching the History, and they were setting up this coming episode,
1:45:02
Speaker1: and it was about train robberies, the whole thing.
1:45:05
Speaker1: It was about train robberies, and they said the first episode will detail the
1:45:11
Speaker1: first train robbery, documented train robbery in the United States of America by the Reno brothers.
1:45:20
Speaker0: Oh, my goodness. And you thought, did we rob something and don't remember it?
1:45:26
Speaker1: Yeah, yeah. I was like, well, you know what, Reno's need redemption from the very beginning.
1:45:33
Speaker1: From the very beginning. Well, there's always more, right? There's always more to the story. Yeah.
1:45:41
Speaker1: And I know today, man, you want to talk to us about more.
1:45:45
Speaker0: Yeah, I really do. Kyle, for two years, I have been meditating on one psalm.
1:45:57
Speaker0: I just can't get it out of my mind. Of course, I've been studying about the
1:46:02
Speaker0: present-centered life. and written on it.
1:46:05
Speaker0: And so I've been focused on that quite a bit. And one of the greatest passages that deals with that.
1:46:12
Speaker0: It comes from the pen and the inspired, Holy Spirit-inspired writing of a man
1:46:20
Speaker0: who walked that kind of presence-centered life named David.
1:46:25
Speaker0: And Psalm 16, in fact, if you're listening today and you happen to be able to
1:46:32
Speaker0: pull out your Bible, just pull that out to this glorious Psalm.
1:46:38
Speaker0: And I think the Lord wants us to see something. I want to begin with this question,
1:46:44
Speaker0: and that is, do you have all of God that you think you're supposed to have?
1:46:50
Speaker0: And does God have all of you that he desires?
1:46:56
Speaker0: I remember one time hearing Adrian Rogers, great pastor, say,
1:47:03
Speaker0: I don't know how much of God you have, but I know this, you have all you want.
1:47:07
Speaker0: Now, he didn't mean he understood that we have the spirit, we have all of God
1:47:12
Speaker0: that we'll ever have living inside of us.
1:47:15
Speaker0: But what he meant was, are you consciously aware of and experiencing God in a way that God desires?
1:47:23
Speaker0: Because there's always more. There's just always more.
1:47:28
Speaker0: And I want us to see that in Psalm 16 in a beautiful way.
1:47:36
Speaker0: And what a present-centered life. I mean by that,
1:47:40
Speaker0: a man, a woman who's learned how to live in the daily conscious awareness of
1:47:46
Speaker0: the presence of God and to walk and live a God-initiated life,
1:47:53
Speaker0: what they're experiencing.
1:47:56
Speaker0: So let me just mention two or three things, as we see in Psalm 16,
1:48:01
Speaker0: about what a present-centered life is about.
1:48:04
Speaker0: A presence in our life has, or man or woman, has found their God.
1:48:12
Speaker0: They found their God. They settled the issue. Now, look what David says in Psalm 16, 1.
1:48:18
Speaker0: Preserve me, O God. I take refuge in you.
1:48:21
Speaker0: I said to the Lord, you are my Lord, and I have no good beside you.
1:48:28
Speaker0: And as for the saints who are in the earth, there are majestic ones in whom
1:48:33
Speaker0: is all my delight. But the sorrows of those who have bartered for another God will be multiplied.
1:48:41
Speaker0: And I will not pour out their drink offerings of blood, nor will I take their
1:48:45
Speaker0: names upon my lips, because the Lord is a portion of my inheritance and my cup.
1:48:53
Speaker0: And so what was David saying? David's saying, look, I've settled the issue in my life.
1:48:59
Speaker0: All of us have gods, right? Everybody has a God, whether you realize it or not.
1:49:05
Speaker0: It may be the Lord God, capital G,
1:49:09
Speaker0: or it may be the gods of this world,
1:49:12
Speaker0: little g's, the gods of power, the God of comfort, the God of pleasure,
1:49:18
Speaker0: the God of materialism, the God of immorality.
1:49:25
Speaker0: But David said, I've just settled the issue, and that is, you are my God.
1:49:31
Speaker0: You are my Lord. Now, why was this? Well, what he said was, is very logical.
1:49:38
Speaker0: He said, you're my God because there's no good anywhere else.
1:49:43
Speaker0: Verse three, he says, I have no good besides you. I mean, where would I go?
1:49:49
Speaker0: What else would be better than this? And it just makes, honestly,
1:49:54
Speaker0: logical sense to see this and to settle the issue that,
1:50:00
Speaker0: as for me, as Joshua said in my house, we're going to serve the Lord.
1:50:05
Speaker0: If you want to serve the gods that were on the other side of the river,
1:50:09
Speaker0: Joshua said, then that's fine.
1:50:11
Speaker0: Go do that. But as for me in my house, we're going to serve the Lord.
1:50:15
Speaker0: But I don't want those other gods. And here's another thing he says,
1:50:19
Speaker0: because there's multiplied sorrow.
1:50:22
Speaker0: Everywhere else.
1:50:24
Speaker0: I love the way the New American Standard translate this.
1:50:29
Speaker0: He says, those who have bartered for another God have multiplied their sorrows.
1:50:37
Speaker0: And a barter means to wrangle, to sell something to get something else, right?
1:50:45
Speaker0: You wheel and deal to get something else. And people all the time take their
1:50:51
Speaker0: time and their money and their resources and their youth and their reputation and their family,
1:50:58
Speaker0: and they just barter with it to see if I can get a little God for me,
1:51:03
Speaker0: a little more pleasure, a little more power,
1:51:07
Speaker0: a little more recognition, a little more fame.
1:51:11
Speaker0: But all you're doing is just multiplying your sorrows because God never meant
1:51:19
Speaker0: for you to have any other God.
1:51:22
Speaker0: I mean, isn't this what he just said over and over again?
1:51:26
Speaker0: I'm the Lord, your God. Don't have any other gods besides me.
1:51:33
Speaker0: And David had settled this.
1:51:37
Speaker0: Dear friend, as you're listening to this podcast, every godly,
1:51:45
Speaker0: really successful, fruitful,
1:51:48
Speaker0: peaceful person I know has settled that issue.
1:51:54
Speaker0: And I just want to ask you, have you?
1:51:57
Speaker0: I mean, have you really settled the issue or are you still playing around thinking
1:52:02
Speaker0: that there might be some God out there that's better than the Lord God?
1:52:09
Speaker0: You'll never have the more that God intends for you to have until you settle this.
1:52:15
Speaker0: But secondly, a present-centered person not only has found their God,
1:52:23
Speaker0: a present-centered man or woman is focused on their God.
1:52:27
Speaker0: Now, I want you to listen real carefully.
1:52:33
Speaker0: I know many professing Christians who have made an initial choice for God,
1:52:41
Speaker0: but they are making no daily choice to have that God in the center of their life.
1:52:51
Speaker0: There's no daily passion.
1:52:54
Speaker0: There's no fervent desire to seek the Lord with all of their heart.
1:53:00
Speaker0: I remember talking to one guy in a church I was pastoring, and I said something about praying.
1:53:06
Speaker0: And he said, yeah, well, you'll have to ask.
1:53:08
Speaker0: He was laughing. He said, you'll have to ask my wife. She's the one that does all the praying.
1:53:13
Speaker0: And I knew this guy, and I knew the lack of fruit, spiritual fruit in his life.
1:53:18
Speaker0: And I just thought in my mind, well, I guess you just decided,
1:53:22
Speaker0: I don't want to walk with God.
1:53:23
Speaker0: I'll just let my wife walk with God because you can't walk with God and not talk to Him and not pray.
1:53:31
Speaker0: Uh, so if you want to have a real vital relationship, you've got to not only
1:53:37
Speaker0: choose the Lord, your God,
1:53:41
Speaker0: but you also have to have a daily focus on the Lord, your God.
1:53:47
Speaker0: And this was the difference in, in, in David.
1:53:50
Speaker0: And I love what he said in verse seven of Psalm 16. Listen to this.
1:53:56
Speaker0: This is so profound. I will bless the Lord who has counseled me.
1:54:02
Speaker0: Indeed, my mind instructs me in the night.
1:54:05
Speaker0: I have set the Lord continually before me.
1:54:12
Speaker0: I have set the Lord continually before me. Now, I have these,
1:54:19
Speaker0: if you're seeing by video, I've got these glasses that I wear.
1:54:25
Speaker0: And what's sad about this story is I've worn glasses since the eighth grade, right?
1:54:34
Speaker0: And I'm not in the eighth grade anymore. So all of these years for decades.
1:54:40
Speaker0: And something interesting, and you know this if you wear glasses,
1:54:44
Speaker0: is I get out of bed in the morning. And the first thing I do is reach down on
1:54:50
Speaker0: the end table and put my glasses on.
1:54:54
Speaker0: I place them right here before me.
1:54:57
Speaker0: And you know what? I don't take them off all day.
1:55:00
Speaker0: And I finally go to bed at night and I read a little bit in bed at night and
1:55:05
Speaker0: often. So I lay down in bed.
1:55:09
Speaker0: And when I'm finished reading and turn out the light, I take these glasses off
1:55:14
Speaker0: and place them on the nightstand.
1:55:17
Speaker0: I set them before me. I do that because putting on these glasses,
1:55:22
Speaker0: having them in their proper position gives me vision.
1:55:26
Speaker0: It gives me clarity.
1:55:29
Speaker0: I can see. Things make sense.
1:55:33
Speaker0: And what the psalmist said here is, I set God, I listen to the wording, continually before me.
1:55:45
Speaker0: In one sentence, I can't think of a clear way to talk about a present-centered life.
1:55:53
Speaker0: I want the Lord. I've chosen him, but I don't want him just initially. I need him every day.
1:56:00
Speaker0: So I'm going to set him before me. I'm going to listen to him.
1:56:05
Speaker0: And therefore, because I have set him there, what did David's testimony become?
1:56:11
Speaker0: He counsels me. He leads me and speaks to me in the night.
1:56:21
Speaker0: I made a statement in a little book I wrote recently called The Presence-Centered
1:56:26
Speaker0: Life, and that's this, that God desires a continual, daily,
1:56:32
Speaker0: personal relationship with us, but we must cooperate. That's not going to just happen.
1:56:38
Speaker0: The things you must do, and you must realize that his presence,
1:56:43
Speaker0: his nearness, is our greatest need, but our presence with him is his great delight and his great desire.
1:56:55
Speaker0: How does that happen? Well, you must find your God, settle the issue.
1:57:03
Speaker0: Lord, you're my Lord. I don't want any other gods.
1:57:06
Speaker0: But secondly, you must daily set the Lord before you.
1:57:11
Speaker0: You must focus on your God.
1:57:14
Speaker0: And do you know what happens for people who do that, who learn the way of a
1:57:22
Speaker0: present-centered life? And there's some things we have to learn about that through the years.
1:57:29
Speaker0: A present-centered man or woman is filled with God.
1:57:34
Speaker0: Now listen to the last part of this incredible psalm, he says in verse 9,
1:57:42
Speaker0: because God is at my right hand, I will not be shaken.
1:57:46
Speaker0: So what happens to a present center man? They have stability.
1:57:50
Speaker0: Why? Because God is with them.
1:57:54
Speaker0: What could be more stable than having God with you, right?
1:57:58
Speaker0: I mean, you see an old person who's not stable in their life,
1:58:02
Speaker0: and they want somebody at their right arm that they can hold on to,
1:58:07
Speaker0: and they feel okay. They have stability. They know where they're going.
1:58:11
Speaker0: Or you see a little toddler who's struggling in their way, but then their mom
1:58:16
Speaker0: or dad comes and takes their hand, and it gives them incredible stability.
1:58:20
Speaker0: Well, this world is a shaky place to live, and there's a lot of fear and anxiety and worry.
1:58:29
Speaker0: Unless you set the Lord continually and you have his awareness of his presence,
1:58:39
Speaker0: the conscious awareness of his presence continually, then you have stability.
1:58:46
Speaker0: But then he says, my flesh,
1:58:49
Speaker0: therefore my heart is glad and my glory rejoices and my flesh also will deal
1:58:55
Speaker0: securely because you will not abandon my soul to shield nor will you show your
1:59:03
Speaker0: holy one, send your holy one to decay.
1:59:07
Speaker0: So there is not only stability, there's security.
1:59:11
Speaker0: I know where I'm going. I know who holds me. I know who's got me.
1:59:17
Speaker0: How do you know that, Bill? Because I'm talking to him all day long,
1:59:21
Speaker0: because I have set the Lord continually before me.
1:59:26
Speaker0: So you may be a person who feels very insecure.
1:59:32
Speaker0: You feel insecure at work. You feel really shaky in your family.
1:59:39
Speaker0: You feel insecure about the future. Okay.
1:59:43
Speaker0: You feel insecure about just your personal life and where it's all going and where it's headed.
1:59:52
Speaker0: Well, you can continue to walk with that kind of insecurity and suffer the results of that.
1:59:59
Speaker0: Or you can settle the issue that the Lord is your God and you can place him continually.
2:00:08
Speaker0: You can learn how to do this, place him every day, continually,
2:00:15
Speaker0: and you're talking to him every day through the day.
2:00:19
Speaker0: You're walking with him. You're communing with him, and he's communing with
2:00:23
Speaker0: you, and you'll have absolute, unbelievable security.
2:00:28
Speaker0: And there's something else he says. Look in verse 11.
2:00:32
Speaker0: You will make known to me the path of life.
2:00:37
Speaker0: In other words, if I'm not aware of the Lord and I'm just doing this thing on
2:00:41
Speaker0: my own, I have no idea about direction.
2:00:46
Speaker0: One of the most beautiful things in the Old Testament is the story of God leading
2:00:50
Speaker0: the children of Israel from Egypt and bondage into the promised land.
2:00:56
Speaker0: And you remember how he did that? He said, I'm going to place during the day
2:01:01
Speaker0: a cloud by day and at night a pillar of fire.
2:01:08
Speaker0: And all you have to do is just follow me and I will lead you in all the right
2:01:14
Speaker0: paths, not just for your sake, but so that my name might be seen.
2:01:20
Speaker0: Here's what David said. The Lord is my shepherd. He leads me in all the right
2:01:24
Speaker0: paths for his name's sake.
2:01:27
Speaker0: So he will be rightly glorified as the great leader that he is.
2:01:34
Speaker0: Do you feel like you're lacking direction in your life?
2:01:38
Speaker0: That you just don't know? You just think, man, I just don't know what to do.
2:01:41
Speaker0: I don't know how to handle my family. I don't know how to handle my finances.
2:01:45
Speaker0: I don't know how to handle my kids.
2:01:47
Speaker0: I don't know. The decisions I have at work just paralyze me.
2:01:50
Speaker0: I don't know what to do. I have no direction.
2:01:54
Speaker0: Well, of course.
2:01:56
Speaker0: You know why? You are never meant to do this thing on your own.
2:02:01
Speaker0: And Jesus says, abide in me.
2:02:05
Speaker0: Place me continually before you. Remain fixed with me. Walk with me.
2:02:12
Speaker0: And you're going to bear fruit. I mean, great direction.
2:02:18
Speaker0: You'll do the things that I intended for you to do. But apart from me, you can do nothing.
2:02:24
Speaker0: And there's one other thing that he says in this passage, and it's one of the
2:02:29
Speaker0: reasons we love this psalm.
2:02:32
Speaker0: He said, I have placed the Lord continually before me, verse 7,
2:02:36
Speaker0: verse 11, you will make known to me the path of life.
2:02:41
Speaker0: In your presence is fullness of joy, and in your right hand there are pleasures forevermore.
2:02:53
Speaker0: Do you know that the Lord wants you to have pleasure in the best sense of that
2:03:00
Speaker0: word, in the holy sense of that word.
2:03:03
Speaker0: He is delighted when you have his kind of pleasure, that the pleasures that
2:03:10
Speaker0: are found in his right hand.
2:03:12
Speaker0: And he wants you to have not a little bit of joy, not some joy every once in
2:03:20
Speaker0: a while, not joy when things are going good.
2:03:24
Speaker0: He said, in your presence, when I'm setting the Lord continually before me,
2:03:30
Speaker0: and I'm knowing his presence, I'm consciously aware of him, I'm talking to him throughout the day,
2:03:37
Speaker0: in your presence is fullness of joy.
2:03:44
Speaker0: Can I just ask you, before we pray together, do you have that?
2:03:51
Speaker0: Do you have fullness of joy, or do you look around and you say,
2:03:55
Speaker0: man, you know, I'm just not very happy in my life?
2:04:00
Speaker0: Well, you know why we have so many joyless Christians?
2:04:05
Speaker0: We have many presenceless, that's the word, Christians.
2:04:12
Speaker0: We have so many people who are not setting the Lord.
2:04:15
Speaker0: They're not focused on him. They're not seeking first his kingdom.
2:04:19
Speaker0: They're not praying without ceasing.
2:04:22
Speaker0: They're not communing throughout the day. And therefore, they have not set the
2:04:26
Speaker0: Lord before them. And they're in a fog.
2:04:29
Speaker0: They don't know direction. They're insecure.
2:04:31
Speaker0: They're unstable. And they have no joy.
2:04:35
Speaker0: And that's not a very pleasurable way to live.
2:04:40
Speaker0: And can I say to you, God has more for you.
2:04:45
Speaker0: He has more, but it's all found in his presence.
2:04:52
Speaker0: Can I pray with you about that?
2:04:55
Speaker0: Father, we're just so grateful.
2:04:59
Speaker0: That this psalm promises us so much more.
2:05:05
Speaker0: And I pray, Father, that just the brief moments that we've talked about this,
2:05:14
Speaker0: would haunt us, these words would pursue us.
2:05:19
Speaker0: I pray that we would evaluate our lives and see if we have found the Lord.
2:05:30
Speaker0: If we've settled the issue that he is our God and there's no good anywhere else,
2:05:38
Speaker0: and I'm not going to choose the gods of this world.
2:05:42
Speaker0: And Lord, help us to learn how to be focused on you to place the Lord,
2:05:47
Speaker0: just like my glasses on my face, to place the Lord continually before me.
2:05:55
Speaker0: And Lord, to be filled with you, it's a secret to joy, to life, security.
2:06:02
Speaker0: But Father, it's the key to the world seeing through us and our lives.
2:06:10
Speaker0: What an incredible God you are.
2:06:14
Speaker0: And I pray that you would take us there to become present-centered men and women
2:06:21
Speaker0: of God. We love you, Lord.
2:06:24
Speaker0: We thank you that there's more for us. And we pray it in your precious holy name. Amen.
2:06:32
Speaker0: Well, we're so glad you joined us today on our One Cry podcast.
2:06:39
Speaker0: And we just keep coming every week because there's always more.
2:06:46
Speaker0: And our great joy and our great task is to just find the more of God and share
2:06:57
Speaker0: a little bit of that every week.
2:06:58
Speaker0: And we're so thrilled that you're with us along the journey.
2:07:01
Speaker0: And I pray that you'd let somebody else know about the One Cry podcast.
2:07:06
Speaker0: Send them a note, an email, put it on social media.
2:07:12
Speaker0: And if this is blessing you, let it bless them too.
2:07:16
Speaker0: Thank you so much. And we'll see you next time.