Latest / The OneCry Podcast / #154 The Presence Centered Life (6 - Bridges Instead of Barriers)

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#154 The Presence Centered Life (6 - Bridges Instead of Barriers) · The OneCry Podcast

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  The greatest apologetic that we could ever offer is the opportunity for people.
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  Music.
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  To experience God's presence and to not build barriers by our preferences.
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  Welcome to the One Cry Podcast, a nationwide call for spiritual awakening.
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  The goal, accelerating the movement of God through sharing revival truth, stories, and reports.
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  Well, welcome to the OneCry podcast. I'm Bill Eliff, and this is my good buddy
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  and dear friend, Kyle Reno, and partner in crime and in the scriptures.
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  And, yeah, it's just great to be together.
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  Kyle, we're tracking on holy ground here, And it's so exciting as we're talking
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  about the essential presence of God in about a dozen podcasts here.
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  By the way, we have a companion book that is available, and you can get it on the onecry.org.
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  And it's called The Essential Presence. It's 40 readings, one for every day
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  for 40 days, where you can just be kind of taken in every day back into the heart of God.
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  And, you know, today, Kyle, you're going to talk about something that's so precious to God.
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  And as you were explaining it to me, I thought about how many times, you know,
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  you're in a schoolyard or you're in a church meeting and you look over and there's
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  one kid that's just standing by himself and he's isolated.
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  And, you know, you can ignore that. A lot of people do.
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  But if you have anything of the heart of God, your heart's going to just zero in right there.
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  That's right. It just goes there. You want to be with them, and you will.
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  You'll go be with them. You'll go pursue them because you know they need to
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  be brought into the circle. So we're going to look at that today.
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  Yeah, and the heart of God is reflected all across the Scripture in how essential His presence is.
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  But I want to challenge us, man, to think, and I'm telling you,
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  this is holy ground. I might have to keep it together, right?
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  So don't let me go crying, Bill, too hard on you. I can't stop you, man.
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  Don't ask me. That's a pot calling kettle black.
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  So, here's the truth, though. I want to talk to you.
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  I don't think that we often think about how essential God's presence is evangelistically.
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  And what happens in the heart of a far from God person when they experience the presence of God?
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  And what I think religion often does is it builds barriers instead of bridges.
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  That it makes it harder for far-from-God people to experience the genuine presence of God.
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  And so just to give you a little context for this, that's my story.
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  That's one of the reasons why I'm passionate about it. I grew up in rural Alabama,
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  if you can't tell from the accent already, and I had heard FCA moments with
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  faithful men and shared gospel.
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  I'd been around it, never grew up in church, around the things of God.
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  What I did see just felt plastic.
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  And there's no indictments. It just felt fake.
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  And I remember thinking in my mind that Christianity is a weak man's crutch.
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  You know and that all I
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  ever knew is pull yourself up by your bootstraps be a man
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  you know a very broken masculinity but I also never seen the real thing and
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  so through a lot of brokenness and tragedy and the fateful witness of a baseball
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  coach and a million invites to a a church gathering.
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  I finally followed my freshman year, walked into Gardin Hill First Baptist Church.
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  And honestly, it's probably going to be one of the only shots I'm going to give it.
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  And what I was overcome by was the presence of God.
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  Like I couldn't deal with what I knew to be true in what God was doing, even in the room.
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  That was beyond people. It was a sense, a tangible sense.
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  Theologically, you say transcendence, the weight of God, like he was just,
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  he was there and I didn't know what to do with that.
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  And so on that side, the summarized story, a week later, I'm back there and
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  are born again, saved by Christ in the presence of God through the preaching
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  of the gospel of Jesus Christ,
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  which we know is essential to even being saved, but also the known tangible
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  presence of God in that environment.
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  So I say all that to say is, listen to me, there's something that is,
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  I think we've given away evangelistically in our right belief that when God
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  is near and making himself known,
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  it draws far from God people home.
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  It draws them home. And I think that Jesus gives us this moment to share God's
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  passion in a very physical way.
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  John 2, I'm going to throw these things out there. And then,
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  Bill, I want us to just talk about it. But I want you to see Jesus.
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  And I think we miss sometimes what's happening in this moment.
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  John 2, verse 13 says, The Passover of the Jews was at hand.
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  And when Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
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  So here's Jesus, which, by the way, in his physical life, life didn't skip spiritual moments.
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  Think about that. In Jesus' physical life, there was by law then,
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  if you were then 15 miles,
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  19 years old or older male, that you were demanded that you come to bring the
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  temple tax, to offer sacrifices.
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  But Jesus, if anyone could have skipped a religious ceremony and been fine,
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  it would have been him because he was holy, perfect.
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  But he didn't skip moments. Man, in his physical life, he moved toward these
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  moments that had spiritual meaning to them. So there's a buzz.
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  So you got to see it. There's a buzz around Jerusalem, that there's a festival
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  feast. There's all these religious high watermarks happening.
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  And when he gets there, this is what he finds. Verse 14, in the temple,
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  he found those who were selling ox.
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  Oxen and sheep and pigeons and the money changers sitting there.
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  Now, when it says in the temple, historians agree that this is referring to
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  an area that was distinguished as the court of the Gentiles.
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  That it was a specific place section of the temple complex that was intended,
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  and this is what you got to capture.
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  It was intended to be the place where the Gentiles could come,
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  where the non-Jewish people could come.
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  It was the only place, the only place that the non-Jewish world could pray,
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  could praise, could bring their offerings and sacrifices to the one true God.
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  It was the place that the non-Jewish world could hear more about Yahweh,
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  that this was the place, I just want to tell you,
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  that the Gentiles could have experienced the presence of God.
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  Pretty important place, wouldn't you say, for the non-Jewish world.
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  And when Jesus gets there, he finds them selling animals for sacrifice,
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  which is not a terrible act in itself. There was the need for that.
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  So not everyone had to journey with their sacrifice.
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  But it's not what they were doing. It's where they were doing it.
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  It makes sense for them to need that, but that they did it in an area that was
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  going to hurt others' experience of God.
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  That they were filling the court of the Gentiles with trade.
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  They were finding a way, and we know through history, to make more money,
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  to leverage this religious festival.
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  But in reality, they were making it harder for people to experience God's presence.
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  They had taken a holy space and they were doing unholy things.
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  So I want to come back to a statement here.
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  Religion makes it, when I say that, like the practice, the facade,
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  the mere act or activity, religion makes it harder for people to experience God's presence.
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  Makes it harder, that they build up obstacles. That can be traditions.
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  That can be personal preferences.
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  That can be those friend groups that you can't gain access to.
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  They're impenetrable. And on we go.
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  When what we do becomes merely about those that are already in,
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  Man, we've lost sight of those that have not yet come into the faith or into the family.
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  What they had was a club, and they didn't care about those that were on the fringe.
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  They didn't care about making it easier for people to come close.
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  So here's just a question about our manner of life and worship.
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  Will either be a bridge or a barrier for people to experience God's presence.
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  That we will, as an individual and as a church, will either be a bridge saying,
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  we want the far from God to get as close to his presence as possible.
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  So we're going to pray like crazy.
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  We're going to have worship gatherings that attract the presence of God because
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  we want the far from God to get as close as they can. And we're going to build
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  relationships with them.
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  We're going to build friendships. We're going to have dinners.
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  We're going to have moments that you get to see in my life because I want to
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  be a bridge to one day let you experience God's presence, to meet a God that is real.
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  I've often said because God wrote it in my heart, and I believe the need now is greater than ever.
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  The greatest apologetic on planet Earth is the presence of God.
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  The greatest apologetic, what our nation needs now, what people that have a crazy worldview,
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  people with extreme brokenness, people from addiction to people that are wealthy
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  and think that they are self-made men and women, every one of them,
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  the greatest way to get them into a place of receiving Christ is not merely
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  intellectually engaging them or just socially helping them. All those things are great.
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  But the greatest apologetic that we could ever offer is the opportunity for
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  people to experience God's presence.
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  And to not build barriers by our preferences, not build barriers by our traditions,
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  but to say we'll remove anything to help you get to him.
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  And hence why Jesus, so once you get this, passion responds the way he does. Verse 15.
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  Table. Let me tell you what this is not. This is not a fit of rage.
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  This is a premeditated decision that you don't sit down and make a whip just because you're mad.
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  You make one because you say, this is not what my father intended,
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  and I will not allow this to happen.
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  And he rightly, Jesus said, it's time for me to appropriate some authority in
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  this setting because this is my father's house. But what's driving him is the
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  passion for far-from-God people to get into the presence of his Father.
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  He knew what the intent of the court of the Gentiles was in that moment,
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  and he wouldn't let anything get in the way.
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  That's why verse 16 says this, And he told those who sold the pigeons, Take these things away.
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  Do not make my Father's house a house of trade.
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  His disciples remembered what was written, zeal for your house will consume me.
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  I love what it says in the New King James Version about John 2, 17.
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  It says, then his disciples remembered what is written, zeal for your house has eaten me up.
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  I mean, I'm raising five kids and I'm in all the different activities and stuff,
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  you know, and you'll often hear somebody say, man, he's just eat up with fishing.
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  You know, he's just eat up hunting or he's just eat up with baseball,
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  you know, or whatever it might be.
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  Well, Jesus was eat up with passion for his father's house.
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  He was eat up with passion for the purpose of his father's house. Let me simplify.
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  Jesus was passionate about people walking into his father's presence.
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  That's what he was passionate about. And when he saw obstacles to that,
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  he went on the offensive.
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  When he saw obstacles to that, he removed them.
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  He removed them. He got them out of the way.
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  Of course, religion responds as it always does to these kinds of things.
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  What sign do you show us, verse 18, for doing these things?
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  And Jesus' answer said, destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.
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  And the Jews said, man, it took us 46 years to build this temple,
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  and you'll raise it up in three days? But Jesus says, no, no, no.
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  He knew he was speaking about the temple of his body, when therefore he would be raised from the dead.
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  And his disciples remembered what he said when they believed the scripture and
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  the word that Jesus had spoke to them. Jesus says, no, I'm going to let you in on a secret.
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  One day, this right here, my body, will be what removes any barrier from people
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  coming into the presence of the Father. He said, I'm going to be the temple.
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  I'm going to be the way that they get home into my Father's house.
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  That's why Jesus' resurrection was the ultimate bridge.
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  Jesus' resurrection was the ultimate bridge into the what? The Father's presence.
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  It was the ultimate way for us to get home. And then I love that,
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  you know, there's a moment in Matthew 21 when it says that my house shall be a house of prayer.
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  And we've talked about that, Bill, so many times, even in this,
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  that God's house was intended to be a place where people met with and cried out to God.
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  In Matthew 21, verses 12 through 13, it speaks to that.
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  But then verse 14, interesting, because there's just two different moments.
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  So I'm skipping to Matthew 21, two different moments where Jesus does the same
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  thing, where he runs these practices out that are a hindrance to God's presence.
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  Presence, people experiencing God's presence.
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  And when you get to Matthew 21, verses 12, 13, talks about my house being a
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  house of prayer after he cleanses the temple. And then I'd never seen this before.
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  And in verse 14, it says, so Jesus gets those that are made his house,
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  his father's house, a house of trade out.
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  Listen who comes in. And then I want you to think about your city.
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  Then I want you to think about the role of your church.
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  In verse 14, it says, and when Jesus got all of them out of the way,
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  verse 14 says, the blind and the lame came to him in the temple and he healed them.
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  The leading priests and the teachers of religious law saw these wonderful miracles
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  and heard even the children in the temple shouting, praise God for the son of David.
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  So when he got them out of the way, there was no barrier for people anymore. Jesus was the bridge.
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  And he was getting them into the presence of the Father.
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  And in the presence of the Father, anything's possible. In the presence of the
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  Father, there's healing that happens in this moment, the blind and lame.
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  But ultimately, listen to me, it's bigger than merely that.
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  I want you to think about this. They watched this happen, the blind and lame.
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  They've watched Jesus cleanse the temple. And what it didn't do,
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  it didn't make them want to run away.
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  It made them want to run too.
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  They came to Jesus in the temple, and he let them experience the power of God.
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  And then I love, don't miss this, and the children are in the temple shouting.
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  The kids are going, this is real. That's what they're doing.
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  The kids are going, that's it.
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  That's the kingdom. kingdom that's that's that's god being displayed among us
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  the kids are experiencing god's presence and i i just say to us and bill we
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  can talk about a little bit jesus wants to help hurting people,
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  and he knows the greatest way that hurting people are helped is by experiencing
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  the presence of his father if i can get him into the presence of god and that's
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  why jesus came through the resurrection He's inviting us into this fellowship, back into the garden,
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  back into original intent.
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  And I'm just in my heart, listen, if we would rightly believe,
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  if we can get as many far from God people as possible into the real experience
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  of God's presence, you never know what will happen.
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  He'll change the world. And, you know, I tell you, this is blowing me away, Kyle.
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  I don't know that I'd ever thought about that aspect of this.
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  And two things are very convicting to me right now.
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  One is personal and one is corporate. One is I'm either a bridge or a barrier.
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  And I think as a Christian, and I've told people a lot of times,
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  if you're not walking in the fullness of God and in his presence,
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  that's not just, well, you're missing something.
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  It's no, you are aborting something.
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  Something because you you name the
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  name of christ on your forehead and people look
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  at you like a 17 year old cow looked at
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  at fake christians and said well is that
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  christianity well that's you know
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  that's nothing but but on the other side when you run into a christian that's
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  full of the presence of god they run into god right i mean it's like a sponge
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  and you run your hand across it and that whatever ends that sponge starts coming out,
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  the life of God, the presence of God, the wisdom of God comes out and gets all
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  over them and it's refreshing.
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  It's life-giving. And so I mean, I've got to ask the question if I'm listening,
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  today, am I a bridge or a barrier? Period.
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  You know? And then secondly.
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  Man, are we doing things in the courtyard that are hindering the presence of
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  God and the children and the blind and the lame and everybody coming in the presence of God?
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  And, you know, there's a simplicity about this, Kyle, that I don't think we get.
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  We think we've got to do a bunch of stuff, you know, to make people come and,
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  you know, to attract people.
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  No, we just have to be full of God.
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  We have to have services and gatherings that are full of God.
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  God will make sure he gets his people there that need it.
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  If you're doing that, if your worship service or a small group is full of God,
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  I promise you, God is going to get people there.
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  I remember one time years ago when I was starting to write books,
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  and I thought, Lord, I'm frustrated. I don't know how to market these.
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  And I'm telling you, as clear as anything, the Lord just said to me,
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  Bill, you just write what I tell you, and you let me take care of the marketing.
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  And I thought, that's the most wonderful thing I've ever heard.
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  And so it's his job to bring. But if we exalt Christ, we lift him up,
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  he'll draw a man unto himself.
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  Yeah, and the desire. I think the desire in me as a pastor and a leader is like,
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  do I want what I really want?
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  I mean, let's get real with it. Do I want them to walk away today?
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  And be wowed by the sermon. You know, do I want them to think that,
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  and I need to work hard on the sermon.
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  You know, do I want them to walk away and be wowed by the.
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  Lights were really cool. Yeah. All the, a million things. And excellence matters. I get all that.
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  But here's the deal, though. God cuts right to the heart of that.
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  I mean, he just, he don't play. He cuts right to the heart of that.
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  He goes, but what do you really want them to walk away with?
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  Well, the truth, I want them to walk away with you.
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  Right. I want them to walk away and go, God was there. What am I going to do about that?
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  God was making himself known in that moment.
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  So I think just to affirm to our listeners today that God wants us to desire
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  his presence on behalf of far from God people.
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  People that don't know him yet. Absolutely. Which is so consistent with his
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  heart. I mean, you know, that's just his heart. It's always been His heart.
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  It was His heart for us. It's hard for me. It's hard for you.
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  You know? So, well, let's pray for this.
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  And, Father, I just thank you for this word.
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  It's so true to your heart. And when we read your Bible and someone explains
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  it to us, we see your heart.
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  And your heart is for hurting lost people.
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  Your heart is for those who are far from you. Your heart is for children.
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  Lord, you said it'd be better for a millstone to be hung around your neck and
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  thrown in the sea than to keep a child from coming into the presence of God.
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  And so I pray that we would see this. And, Lord, I pray that the result of this
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  today, we would really evaluate our heart and say, am I a bridge personally?
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  Or am I a barrier? Am I full of the presence of God so much so that it's unmistakable?
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  It's the distinguishing mark, as Moses said, of my life and of God's people.
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  And people see it and they're drawn unto you.
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  And Lord, that we clear the temple of anything that would hinder,
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  Lord, your presence. and people coming into your presence.
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  So, Lord, just take this, and you're going to teach us from this for a long time.
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  I pray, Lord, it would go deep into our soul and bear fruit for a long time
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  in the way we live and the way we respond to you.
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  And we pray in your precious name. Amen. Amen.
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  Well, amen. What a great morning. I tell you, I could just clear off a spot and stay right.
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  Literally, I just think I want to go in that corner right there and just sit
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  down and think about all this.
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  And, you know, for all those who are listening, that's a great thing about a podcast.
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  You can just come back and back. You don't miss it. And then you can't find it again.
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  You can go back. You can call up a friend and just send him a link and say,
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  hey, go to this. And so I pray that you will not miss one of these podcasts.
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  They all are teaching us how to live with the essential presence.
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  And I hope you'll join us next time as we pursue this incredible,
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  really the most important topic, in my opinion.
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  So thanks for joining us.
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  Music.