Latest / First Love Revolution / All Your Heart | The Greatest Commandment | January 14, 2024

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All Your Heart | The Greatest Commandment | January 14, 2024 · First Love Revolution

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Revolution Church Message Series, the Greatest Commandment.
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: You can find the entire series in video and podcast format, as well as other messages, at firstloverevolutioncom.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Here's Pastor Shane with today's message.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: Hey man, so good.
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: One touch from the Lord can change everything.
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: Anyone agree with that?
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: Absolutely can, and maybe today will be a day where someone will be touched by the Lord.
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: We pray that it would be true.
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: Hello everyone, I'm really looking forward to starting a new series together today, and a special hello to those of you joining us at the Colorado Springs Campus and to those of you watching online.
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: We're going to be jumping into God's Word today with Revelation, chapter 13.
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: I'm just going to be reading a couple of verses It'll be on the screen, so bear with me here starting in verse 16.
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: And he and he is referring to the, the beast of Revelation he causes all the small and the great and the rich and the poor and the free men and the slaves to be given a mark on their right hand or on their forehead, and he provides that no one will be able to buy or sell except the one who has the mark, either the name of the beast or the number of his name.
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: Here is wisdom.
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: Let him who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for the number is that of man, and his number is six hundred and sixty six.
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: I've had this growing sense for a while that we're going to be and I need to teach on in times more.
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: To be honest, I never really wanted to teach on in times.
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: I think I came to faith at a time when everyone was almost only talking about the in times and I at that time I wasn't quite sure if I actually agreed with the primary theology that was being taught about it.
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: Now I know I certainly do not agree with the theology that was being taught about it, but I thought can we just focus on what we need to do right now?
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: You know, like let's just we've got some issues that we need to address here and now, but God's been speaking to me, however, and I've just been hearing him reveal that what happens in our generation and what we are doing in our generation to serve the purposes of God is paramount to what is going to happen in that generation, and so the Lord's kind of been backing me into a corner about it, and I do feel that increasingly, we need to talk about it.
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: I'm not sure exactly when that is going to happen, but for now, I just want us to observe a couple of things.
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: The day is coming when those who do not receive the mark of the beast will be cut off from the worldwide economy.
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: We just read that they won't be able to buy and they won't be able to sell.
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: Can you imagine?
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: I know it's hard for us to think about the world uniting in such a way under a world leader.
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: But prior to that time there will be an event that will trigger this to happen.
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: There will be the true war to end all wars.
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: A war so great, so pervasive, so widespread, so destructive that the notion that's already really been seeded, it'll be prime to be able to fully take root and to flourish.
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: And it will be about this idea of like.
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: We need to ensure that this never happens again.
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: We need to assure this kind of worldwide destruction and death never happens to our children ever again.
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: And out of that place, of course, the Antichrist will rise up and he'll have the solutions and he'll have the strategies and all of that.
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: But there's going to be a philosophy and an ideology underneath it all that we have to end the idea of having an enemy altogether, because that's what leads to all of these wars.
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: We need to unite and we need to be one.
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: We've got to get rid of this whole idea of an us versus a them, and that, of course, will include any religion that goes around telling people, hey, this is truth, and if you don't receive this truth you're going to die in your sin and you will spend an eternity apart from God.
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: If you don't put your faith in Jesus Christ, that sort of thing, it's like that will be considered to be divisive.
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: Also, religion will be the bad guy.
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: Religion caused this last great war and we don't have room for that in the new world.
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: And so, yada, yada, yada, these people are going to be cut off and they're going to be cut out that do not receive the mark.
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: It is coming.
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: I don't think it's as far away as we might be tempted to assume that it is, but it's just.
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: It's the mark of the beast that I want to begin with today and I know that's a very boring subject, so please try to hang with me for a moment but the number is 666.
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: What is that?
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: Well, 666 is the number of man.
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: We are told that, see.
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: Seven is the number for fullness in the Bible.
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: Seven is the number of God and six is the number of man, and, of course, god and his holy Trinity.
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: 77766 is about the one who would elevate man to the highest place.
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: It is the unholy trinity of man in the place of God, meaning the essence of the anti Christ would be raising mankind up to the level that belongs to God.
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: The philosophical and the belief system of the end times will be that whatever is deemed to be the best good of humanity the survival of humanity, the prosperity, the happiness of humanity in terms of their present and future generations living on earth that's going to be chief among all.
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: And so, in that the belief that Jesus is in fact the Lord of this world, who is deserving of all honor and all praise and all of our love and affection and obedience, and all of that, this notion that eternal not temporal, but eternal life and prosperity and happiness is actually dependent upon submitting to him as our Lord in the here and now, and that the rejection of him as our Lord in the here and now is paramount to securing an eternity.
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: Without him being our Lord Instead, we would be under the dominion in the realm of God's enemy instead of God himself.
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: That whole biblical message.
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: It will be considered hate speech.
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: It is already in a non legally binding way today, but it will be legally binding then it will be so antithetical, the message of Scripture, will be so antithetical to the message of the antichrist and of his dominion, that those that don't receive the mark they will be cut off and they will be cut out.
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: So, in short, the love and the worship of God will be subjugated below the love and the worship and the service of humanity.
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: So this in times idolatry.
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: That will be the most successful antichrist movement of all time.
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: It will take the second commandment, essentially to love others, and it will place it above the first commandment and will say that that's precisely the way that it should be.
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: This worldview has already become deeply embedded more than any other time in human history.
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: It's even infiltrated the church to a massive extent.
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: Everywhere I go today, what I hear is not concerned with the love of God and the honor of God and the worship of God and the praise of God, but what I always hear is the concern of the love of man, even inside the household of faith, even the love of the unretentant and unbelieving man.
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: So there's a complete disregard happening today with the love of God and what loving God actually looks like.
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: We do need a revolution that returns to its first love, which is him, and we've been talking about that.
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: Whenever Jesus said to the church of Ephesus you have fallen from your first love.
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: You need to get back to your first works, meaning the first priority works, which are about loving God.
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: Well, it's rare today that people would even know like, but what does that mean?
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: Like, I understand it conceptually, but I don't know what the difference is.
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: Because all of this first love stuff of the Christian faith that aligns to the first and greatest commandment, to love God, it's nearly disappeared.
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: It's been replaced with things that only fit under the second commandment, which is to love others as ourselves.
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: And so what does it mean?
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: To love him first?
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: This is a well-known verse, but we're gonna begin with it.
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: Our series is named after it.
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: The greatest commandment Mark 12, 28 to 30, says this if you have your Bibles certainly would encourage you to flip over there with me.
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: I've cheated by placing a ribbon here, so don't feel like I'm just that great, all right, mark 12, verse 28.
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: One of the scribes came and heard them arguing and recognizing that he had answered them well, and asked Jesus what commandment is the foremost of all?
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: Jesus answered the foremost is here.
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: Oh, israel, the Lord, our God is one Lord, and you shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: The second is this you shall love your neighbor as yourself.
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: There's no commandment greater than these.
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: And so, as we're talking about the greatest commandment, the first and greatest commandment, we're gonna be getting after, well, what does this actually mean?
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: What does it look like, certainly saying love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength?
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: It means loving with all of you, and I think that we were like, yeah, we get that it means all, but we're gonna fall short of hitting that standard If we don't understand what all of each of those actually means.
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: And so today, we're gonna be focusing in on the question about what does it mean to love God with all of our heart?
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: What does that actually mean?
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: What is that about Biblically?
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: What is the heart Biblically?
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: How do we do that Biblically, practically, how can I, you know, before God, who sees all of my heart, somehow love him with all of my heart, in a way that he sees my heart and he says that's a place I would like to be, that is a place that's wholly devoted to me.
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: We're gonna be diving into that, the actual Biblical meaning of heart today, to know what it means.
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: For starters, I think we can discern.
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: It obviously doesn't mean the same thing as mind, soul and strength, and so we're gonna be dealing with those in later weeks.
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: But today is heart.
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: It is somewhat different than those things.
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: But also we tend to think of loving someone from the heart as primarily centered in the place of emotion, like having positive feelings toward someone or, in this case, toward God.
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: But there is more for us to see about the heart than emotion itself.
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: So what is this?
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: What does it mean in the Bible and how do we do it?
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: And I think how is important, because it's also pretty common that we would tend to think about the heart well, I can't control what's in my heart, it just happens, you know.
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: Like what do you mean?
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: I have no say over it, but when we are commanded to love him with all of our heart, that certainly implies that that's not true, that we actually are culpable for what is in our heart and how we love him with our heart.
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: So let's just start with what Luke 6.45, jesus said that the good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth what is good, and the evil man, out of the evil treasure, brings forth what is evil, for his mouth speaks from that which fills his heart.
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: So we know already that what is in the heart is more foundational than what is coming out of our mouth.
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: What is coming out of our mouth is coming out of our heart.
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: But also this word for treasure we've talked about this before.
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: The word for treasure is the same word for like a storehouse or a safe or a vault, a place where you put your valuable things.
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: Okay, and in the Greek this word treasure or storehouse, it's actually there in the first half of this verse.
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: It's not there in the second half of the verse.
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: Some English translations make it parallel by adding it in the second half, but it's not there actually in the second half.
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: So literally the verse reads that the good man, out of the good treasury of his heart, brings forth what is good, but the evil out of the evil brings forth that which is evil.
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: So why aren't they parallel?
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: Why is there a difference in these two statements?
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: It's because what is in a storehouse?
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: It is placed there with intentionality and, biblically, when there is good in the heart.
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: It's because someone put it in there intentionally.
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: But biblically evil in the heart comes naturally.
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: So, loving God with all of our hearts, we should understand already.
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: It is going to require intentionality about what is placed there.
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: Let's continue on.
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: What does the heart hold as we examine it?
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: We're gonna begin in the beginning.
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: One of the most helpful things that I've learned over time, when you are doing a word study of what something means biblically, it's to go back to the first use and the first usages of it in the scripture, because everything after that is built on the premise of what came first, and so that's why we're gonna go back to the very first book of your Bible to look at the first use of the word heart.
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: This is in Genesis, chapter six, verse five.
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: The word for heart is the Hebrew word leib, say leib.
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: Generally it carries the meaning of being at the center of something.
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: In fact, sometimes it's used and it's not actually talking about the human heart.
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: It's just the middle of something, the center of something.
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: Exodus 15, eight, for example, uses it as the heart of the sea.
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: Or Proverbs 30, verse 19, the middle of the sea.
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: So in the Old Testament this word for heart is a little bit broader than the use of it in the New Testament.
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: But its meaning in the Old Testament primarily is just the inner man, it's what's in the middle of you, so we can see the outside of one another.
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: The heart is what is hidden, it's what is inside.
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: No one can see it except for God.
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: It includes thoughts, it included feelings, in addition to a lot of other things kind of think of.
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: When you're looking at the Old Testament word for heart, it's like that internal spaghetti bowl of everything that is inside of us, so pretty broad.
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: In that sense.
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: It's also considered the seat and the center of the human life.
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: That's why Proverbs 4.23 says, above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: So it is the originating point of everything else.
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: It is the headwaters of the stream of our being.
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: It's a pretty big deal.
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: And so, with that understanding, going back to Genesis, what's coming out of the heart in that verse?
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: Well, again, the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: No one says amen after that, do they?
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: As you can see, god's revelation about who he is and about who we are is extremely the opposite of the message of the beast and the antichrist.
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: God reveals a picture of mankind being one of what theologians for a long time have called total depravity.
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: So the one who sees our heart says that our one, our thoughts, come out of the heart, but that the intent of them is only evil all the time, meaning even when God witnesses man doing something good and I'm talking apart from the regenerating work that is available by the Spirit and Jesus Christ today but even when God was witnessing man trying to do good things, his intentions for doing so, he says we're evil continually.
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: And that's pretty remarkable.
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: The biblical worldview is that God is holy.
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: Holy when you're singing the words holy, by the way, church, if you wanna get as close to the biblical meaning.
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: It's unlike any other, totally set apart, matchless in every way.
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: It's why I do not like the song that says he's better, he's better, he's better, I'm like no, no, no.
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: You cannot say God is better than God is matchless.
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: He does not like being compared and then said he's better than something.
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: Okay, he's holy, he's set apart, he's unlike any other.
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: And impurity.
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: He's never even had a wrong intention, even the slightest injustice or evil.
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: Nothing has never done any such thing with that upon his heart.
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: That's the biblical worldview and that man is totally depraved.
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: Obviously, we were not originally created that way.
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: It's by choosing to sin and falling out of the original created state, but nevertheless because of this biblical worldview.
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: It's also why, scripturally, everything that God does for us, down to the most basic things, the breath that's in your lungs right now, the life that's in your body right now, the holding of the cosmos together at this millisecond, life itself, shelter, food, all of it, every single thing that is good he gives in, every single part of it, is not only undeserved, it's the opposite of what we deserve.
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: That's the biblical worldview.
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: Anything short of him ending it right now and giving us the eternal life, separated from him, that we actually choose every time we decide to sin.
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: All that he does is mercy.
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: It's all grace, it's a hundred percent.
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: Not only undeserved, the opposite of what I deserve.
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: That's the biblical worldview and it's very important because it's only from that truth of God's holiness and man's total depravity, that the gospel and the rest of scripture actually makes any sense, that Jesus had to come and he had to take the punishment of my sins upon himself on the cross, die, go into the grave, descend all the way into hell, itself, for me, in my place, because that's what sin deserves.
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: And God is a just God and he can't just sweep it into the rug and, of course, then rose from the grave giving life and place of death to those who receive him.
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: But that right there, that's the gospel, that's the good news, that he did that, that he did that for me and that he did that for you and he did it for the whole world, anyone who would receive him.
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: But if you can fundamentally change the worldview of humanity and you have to understand from the foundation of history humanity has always known it deserves to die.
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: It's why, if you go anywhere that hasn't been greatly impacted by the Christian worldview, you'll still see they're making sacrifices for their sins before the gods.
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: Something has to die, something has to die, something has to die.
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: Rather than me, I'll have my cow die.
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: You know, like that's not just what you find in the Old Testament, it's what you found in every culture, who was cut off from even knowledge of the Old Testament.
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: Humanity always knew this, but there's been this steady, progressive change that's kind of hit an inflection point, to change the worldview of humanity to believe that actually human beings are fundamentally good.
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: See, if you can do this, if you can have the whole world begin to believe that human beings are fundamentally good, with maybe a few exceptions Hitler's pedophiles, rapists but then the rest of us that aren't them like we're good, we're fundamentally, at our core, good people.
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe we've been hurt, maybe we've been broken and we, you know, act out of that place sometimes.
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: But if you can get the whole world to see this, it's called humanism, the elevation of humanity.
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: If you can get the whole world to see and believe that humanity is fundamentally good, well then the gospel is unnecessary, it makes no sense anymore.
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: See, if you can get all of the world to believe this, then the evil things that happen in the world, they're not testifying to what happens when we choose sin instead of God, and we choose separation from God instead of union with God, and what the consequence of that is.
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: Whenever we obey his enemy instead of obeying him, we will no longer see the bad things in the world that way, the biblical way, but instead evil things in the world are actually bad things happening to good people.
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: And if we start to see the world that way, then who is the one that is evil?
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: If so, certainly not us.
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: We're good people.
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: Now, who's to blame?
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: He is.
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: Can you see how genius it is?
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: Actually People, but it's genius.
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: This is his plan To have the whole world, at either a conscious or a subconscious level, ultimately hate God.
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: Can you understand why he'd be sowing the humanistic worldview which elevates man all throughout the world?
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: It's for one reason, and one reason only so God will be seen as bad.
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: In place of God being worshiped, god will be accused, hated.
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: That's the whole game plan.
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: How many do you think have figuratively taken the mark of the beast already?
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: The number of man imprinted on the hearts of humanity?
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: A lot, a lot, even in God's house.
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: The stage is set.
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: Can you see it?
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: The stage is set.
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: It's set in a way that's never been set before.
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: The anti-Christ has the perfect anti-gospel.
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: That's what we're seeing For our purposes today.
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: Let's just start by knowing that when God says that, every intent of the thoughts of the heart.
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: That statement does reveal that what's going on in the heart is not just a singular entity.
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: There is intent, there's will, there's desire in the heart.
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: That's not all.
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: There is the desire, drives the thoughts.
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: It drives the plans is the more literal translation of that word for thoughts there.
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: So those things are all in our heart.
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: We're going to be talking about the thoughts part more when we get to the mind.
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: But the plans and the thoughts driven by our desire ultimately direct what we do.
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: So back to our verse.
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: Then the Lord saw the wickedness of man was great on the earth and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: Because, remember, in the Old Testament the mind and the heart get combined into just the word heart.
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: In the New Testament they get separated out.
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: We'll talk more about that later, but we just want to zero in on the word intent for today.
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: Every intent.
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: The word intent is the Hebrew word yetser.
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: It comes from the word for a form or a mold.
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: It's like something getting formed in the mind, molded in the mind, before it's then spoken out or acted out or whatever.
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: And the fact that yetser is different than the word for thoughts here, which is, more literally, again, plans.
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: It tells us that there is a deeper meaning of this word, yetser than just planning something in the mind, our yetser, our intention, it's what we are truly after.
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: It's deeper than the planning.
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: You see, 10 people can actually all plan the same activity and do the same activity, but yet want a different thing as they do.
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: And that's getting after the Hebrew word yetser, the intent.
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: One might do the same activity as someone else, but they're doing it to please so and so you know, maybe someone's doing it to please God.
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: Maybe someone's doing it for financial security.
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: Maybe someone's doing it because they want the praise of men.
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: Maybe someone's doing it because they fear punishment.
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: Maybe someone else is doing it because they just like it and it's satisfying activity for them.
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: I mean, the list can go on and on and on and on the why, the what they want.
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: All of them at some point imagined that activity.
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: All of them then did the activity.
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: Those two steps looked very similar.
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: I think a great analogy, for this is actually worship.
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: We talk about this a lot behind the scenes because you could have 20 people up here on stage and the mission is all the same thing, right, it's to bring glory to God.
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: But all 20 people could do the same thing Plan their activity, learn their parts, you know, get up here, do the same thing, but all 20 of them could actually have a different yetser as they do it right.
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: I won't get into all the things that it could be, but you know, you can easily imagine that those may not all be a good God honoring yetser.
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: It could be a lot of other things that they're actually serving as they do it.
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: So we're tracking with this.
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: Our yetser is our reason, it is our why.
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: It's what you're truly after At its most foundational level.
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: Your yetser, your intent, is your desire.
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: It's why God asked the question so much in Scripture what do you want?
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: What do you want?
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: It's way down there.
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: That's the intent.
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: The thoughts flow out of it, but that's the intent of the heart, above all these other nuances and meanings.
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: The heart is this place.
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: It is the place of our desire.
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: It's why God asked that question.
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: Believer, we can't afford to be ignorant of what is going on in our hearts, can we?
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: We need to know what our yetser actually is.
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: But we have this problem.
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: The problem is we're all running from negative emotions, which are also in the heart.
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: In fact, the very next verse, after the one we've been looking at, says that God was grieved in his own heart because of the sin of man.
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: So emotions are in the heart also and we don't like to feel I don't like to feel negative emotions.
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: We all want to avoid them.
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: I mean, maybe there's a few bleeding heart artists that just love to get in there, you know, in all that stuff, but most people are running away from feeling negative feelings, and so we build blockades and we build barriers and we lock that thing up the best we can because we don't want to feel anything negative inside of there and, as a result, we end up becoming ignorant of what is actually in our hearts.
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: You see, ignoring leads to ignorance.
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: Ignorance about what is in our hearts and what our hearts want really.
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: Ignorance about what's in our hearts and why we are doing the thing that we are doing.
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: Really, we're often so clueless when it comes to our why, to our reason, to our purpose, to our intentions, to what it is that we really desire, and our cluelessness is so costly, but these are the most important things to God.
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: So already, here's what you need to know, some of you have chosen to think that what is outside of you is more important than what's going on inside of you, and you have nurtured being a more observant person than an introspective person, and something has to change, because this is the thing God is looking at most.
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: Some of you have chosen to ignore your heart, and you know you did it because there's pain inside of it, real pain, one that came from things that others did to you.
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: That was wrong, and I'm sorry and in love, I have to tell you that what helped to guard you from painful feelings, it can also harm you much worse if it leads to an ignorance of the heart.
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: Some of you have chosen to think that all that matters is behaviors Like if I just do what God says and say what he says to say and it is good to do what God says, of course, and say what he says to say.
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: But you have been lied to in being told that that's all that matters.
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: The reason you do it is what actually matters most.
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: You can do all the right things for the wrong reasons, and God's looking at the reason.
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: If you've ever been around the spirit of the Pharisees and Sadducees before, you know this what can be doing the right things, and they don't love God and they don't love people.
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: We absolutely must, must, must, examine the heart more thoroughly than anything else in the created world.
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: It is certain we will fall short of learning to love Him with all unless we do this.
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: Just to solidify this, because this is as important as all the how that we're going to get to a little bit today and more next week.
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: But 1 Samuel 16,7.
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: God had sent Samuel to appoint a new king because he had rejected the first king, saul.
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: And right now they're looking at all of David's brothers.
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: When they get to Eliab, the Lord said to Samuel do not look at his appearance or the height of his stature, because I have rejected him, for God sees, not as a man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: So we see, right here, samuel sees this brother and he's impressive, he's tall, he's muscular, he's good looking, he's the whole package.
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: You know, kind of like Saul was and he's like surely this is the guy and God's like no, I've rejected him.
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: God is making a determination based on what he sees in the heart.
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: And here's the thing, biblically our ignorance about what is in our hearts.
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: God doesn't just let us off the hook, for We've got to know what's in there.
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: And I find it very interesting that the two people I would argue that the two people used most by God Old Testament, new Testament.
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: Old Testament, that would be David.
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: New Testament, that would be the apostle Paul, the majority of our New Testaments, you know, of course, written through the hand of Paul.
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: What did these two have in common?
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: Well, david was the guy who prayed God, search me, know my heart, test me, show me what's going on in here.
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: And then Paul was the one that was like you need to examine yourselves and who kept saying my conscience is clear before the Lord in this matter, showing us that he had been going before the Lord and searching show me God, is there any guilt within me?
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: How you know, is my conscience clear before you hear?
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: They were both doing the same thing at a heart level, and this should tell us that it is a dangerous assumption.
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: Just because I'm doing what God commands, that and what I do flows out of my heart, then I must be doing it, you know, out of love for him in my heart.
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: We need to get before God and know why am I doing what I am doing?
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: What is it that I want?
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: Jesus didn't actually say that good actions flow out of the good in the heart.
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: He said just good flows from the good that's in the heart, meaning what is genuinely and thoroughly good before God who sees rightly.
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: It flows from the heart that has good stored in it.
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: So good actions they can be from a good heart, but they may not be.
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: In the verse we just saw, we see God rejecting David's brother.
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: That word for rejected is the same word that gets used when people reject God's statutes, when people reject God's ordinances.
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: It's the same word that he had just used previously about rejecting King Saul.
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: He said I rejected him because he rejected my word.
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: It's the same word that he uses of rejecting Eliab here.
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: So God can see a heart that rejects his word even before the actions that make it evident to man.
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: But also we are seeing something that runs very antithetical to the message that has become pervasive in the Western church today.
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: We see in the Bible that God does not accept everybody, pastors all across Christ.
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: And God accepts everybody, everybody's accepted.
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: You know that's not biblical.
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: God doesn't accept everybody.
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: Hands down.
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: He does not accept everybody anymore than God accepts everything.
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: God loves everybody.
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: Yes, jesus came to save everybody, he died for everybody.
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: But God doesn't accept everybody.
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: Truthfully, god accepts and he puts his stamp of approval only on one his son.
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: No one else is righteous before God.
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: But then he accepts those who are in Christ, who are in his son, those who bear his name, those who belong to him, which are characterized by faith working itself out in action.
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: That's why Jesus said not everyone who says to me, lord, lord, will be saved, but only those who do the will of my Father who is in heaven.
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: So all this to say, this heart stuff, it really matters.
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: And the central meaning of the heart Biblically is that it is the place of desire.
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: So now we have to ask the question well, how then do I love him with desire?
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: How do I somehow get my heart to move true north in its desire?
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: How do I desire rightly, how do I love him with all of my hearts?
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: There's more than we can look at today, but three points briefly for now about how we do this.
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: So the very next use of heart in the Bible.
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: It starts to give us a pointer on what we should be doing with our hearts by actually God giving us an example of what he does with his heart.
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: This is Genesis 8, 21,.
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: The Lord smelled the soothing aroma and the Lord said to himself that is literally he said to his heart in the Old Testament Hebrew I will never again curse the ground on account of man, for the intent of man's heart is evil from his youth, and I will never again destroy every living thing as I have done.
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: So when we read that the Lord said to himself, he said to his heart and it's an important verse for a number of reasons so in man's heart we have these intentions and these purposes and these desires, and they're not set on God and they're not set on good.
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: But in that context we read that God is speaking to his own heart, showing us the difference between what God does with his own heart and what humanity is doing with its heart.
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: God is speaking to his heart, god is leading his heart, god is directing his heart.
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: Man is doing something else.
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: It is being directed by whatever happens to be in the heart.
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: Now let's continue on Genesis 17, verse 17,.
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: We read that Abraham fell on his face and laughed and said in his heart will a child be born, to a man that's 100 years old and to Sarah is 90 years old.
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: So, just following God speaking to his heart, we see Abraham.
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: He's now speaking in his heart and in the Hebrew these translations are accurate the construct is different.
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: God said to Abraham's just saying in and this is important, because we're not seeing Abraham speak to his heart here, he's just reacting and he is responding to what is in his heart.
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: Here, church, listen.
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: In the Scripture we actually find this construct all throughout the Old Testament, and when someone is speaking to their heart, something good is about to happen.
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: However, when someone is just saying in their heart, it's just revealing what is already in there.
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: This is the difference between intentionally putting something in the heart and just allowing it to be what it is.
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: We must become those who speak to our hearts, not being directed by our hearts, but directing our hearts.
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: What's another way that we can love God with our hearts?
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: The second one Genesis 24, abraham commissions his servant to go and to get a wife from his son from amongst their own people.
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: So his servant is going to travel back east, he's going to get out of the land of Canaan, he's going to go pick a wife.
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: And we read in verse 45 of Genesis 24, the servant says, before I had finished speaking, in my heart, now that's like, oh, this is going to be bad.
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: Actually, in the Hebrew it's to my heart.
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: Before I had finished speaking to my heart, behold, rebecca came out with her jar on her shoulder and went down to the spring and drew, and I said to her please let me drink.
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: Now, just before this, this servant, abraham's servant, he had prayed this very specific prayer with God.
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: God, let it be that the one who comes.
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: And then I said this, and then she'll say that, and then she'll also offer the camels.
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: And if all those things happen, then I'll know this is the one, this is the one that you want to be the spouse of.
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: You know, abraham's son, isaac.
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: So, in the context of what he had just been doing, which was praying and talking to God, it's a little unusual that he says, after I finished speaking to my heart, but don't you know?
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: This is the word of God and everything that is there is there for a reason Amen.
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: Why is that speaking to his heart, when he was actually talking to God?
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: You see, when you're asking God to guide you and you're asking God to make the decision that he wants to make.
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: You are speaking to God directly, but you are simultaneously speaking to your own heart, because you are directing your heart to be one who wants to be led by him, one who wants to be under his Lordship, one who wants him to have his will in his way, in his kingdom, through your life, one who is saying not me, not my life, but Christ in me.
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: Come, lord.
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: See, you are speaking to your heart when you do this and notice the servant didn't just say God, would you grant me success today as I go about my way.
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: Instead, he's purposing in his heart I want to know the specific will of God.
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: I want you to have what you want.
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: He went many extra miles in the mind to ensure that God would get what he wants.
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: He was praying show me your will, god, in a way that I cannot mistake.
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: Direct me to recognize it and to see it and to realize it when it takes place.
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: I mean, he could have showed up and just said hey, I got a master and he is looking for a wife for his son, and he's from here.
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: You know he's one of you.
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: And then if not a lot of people volunteered, he could have said he's rich too, you know.
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: I mean, who knows what he could have done in the natural, maybe to, kind of, you know, get some people moving that way.
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: Maybe there could have been some women who would have volunteered themselves.
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: But the servant doesn't do it that way.
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: There's this purposing in his heart like I want the one, I want the one that you want for him and I want to select this one with this undeniable and unmistakable clarity.
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: Now, it's entirely possible that God actually put that in his heart before he even prayed it back to God.
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: We can't know that by the context, but I can't tell you that is something that God does, do.
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: He does.
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: There are times, you know, when he sees in your heart that you want to be in step with him, he will deposit something in the storehouse of your heart so that when that moment comes, you will know you were walking in his way.
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: I can give you a couple examples.
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: Nearly 20 years ago, I pulled Brandon aside.
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: Brandon, raise your hand here, tall worship leader, guy with all the tats, and now he's bald, like me.
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: You look good, though I'm telling you.
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: 20 years ago we were in Chicago.
• 44:11
  Speaker 2: We were young, and I pulled him over to my phone Was it a phone?
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: I think I had a phone at the time.
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: I pointed to the intersection of C470 and I-25 in the state of Colorado and I said someday we're going to plant a church right here.
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: Can you testify that this happened?
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: I mean, I was an intern.
• 44:32
  Speaker 2: This was a long, long time ago Now.
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: If anyone knows the location of the sweet tomatoes building that this church was originally planted in, you know that is crazy.
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: It ended up actually happening.
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: When that happened, I didn't know that.
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: God said that I wasn't trying to prophesy.
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: I just had it in my heart, right here here, and I believe once it happened it's like oh God, put that in my heart so that right now, at this critical time, I would know he saw, he knew you're still stepping in His will.
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: This is not a mistake.
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: He's had this planned all along.
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: There are times when God will speak things into your heart, into this storehouse, so that when you follow Him, it's a confirmation, it's an assurance that you are being in step with Him.
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: I'll give you another example One of the women in our congregation, katie Kofusman.
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: Katie has a special place in the heart of this church because she was the very first person to ever raise her hand and say I want to receive Jesus as my Lord and Savior.
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: When we first planted this church and she came up to me about a year ago and had heard something from the Lord that she wanted to release, I thought how beautiful the first person saved just three years ago.
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: That was two years ago I guess at the time.
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: And now she is prophesying and it's so exciting.
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: But she said I was actually praying over at the next campus.
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: So at this point in time we already were in the works to plant the Colorado Springs location.
• 46:20
  Speaker 2: Praise the Lord.
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: She said I was just praying about the next one and I got a vision of a word.
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: She said it was the word Israel.
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: But not really.
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: She said it was is space real?
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: So I'm just going to give that to you.
• 46:35
  Speaker 2: And I was like huh is real.
• 46:38
  Speaker 2: And I meditated on it, thought about it.
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: I didn't know what to do with it, but certainly God just kind of stuck it in the heart.
• 46:47
  Speaker 2: And then this last week I was walking around this particular place in Mexico City that God has led us to, which I am so excited to tell you guys all about, and next week, next weekend, I'm going to do that, so don't miss next weekend.
• 46:59
  Speaker 2: I cannot wait to share all about it with you.
• 47:02
  Speaker 2: But we were walking around this place and I was walking around with my friend who's from Mexico City, and he was trying to explain to me what this place is and how it is understood by those in the city.
• 47:18
  Speaker 2: He was trying to explain it to me and he just kept saying, over and over again.
• 47:23
  Speaker 2: So he was saying it is real, but English is his second language, which he started pretty late in his life to learn English, and so in his somewhat broken English he just kept saying is real, is real, like this place, this is what we call this is real.
• 47:42
  Speaker 2: I bet he said it seven times and all of a sudden I went huh, is real.
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: You know, it just like came out of the storehouse of the heart, from this word that had been spoken a year ago about where our next location would be, and it just felt like God's little wink of saying yes, you are stepping into the place that I have ordained, that I have planned for you.
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: He will just make these deposits in us so that we can know, and it's not based upon what we would think or know in the natural, but so that we can know in the spirit that we're in step with him.
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: So this is what God, this is the kind of thing that God will do.
• 48:22
  Speaker 2: We're seeing it here with the servant of Abraham.
• 48:25
  Speaker 2: It's important for us to recognize that when we are not asking God, would you speak, would you lead me, would you tell me what do you want?
• 48:34
  Speaker 2: Where do you want me to go?
• 48:35
  Speaker 2: Which way?
• 48:35
  Speaker 2: You know left, right, this, that Our heart is being trained to just do its own thing.
• 48:42
  Speaker 2: Our heart is actually being trained to lead its own life and not be led by him, but the sons and daughters of God are to be led by the spirit of God.
• 48:55
  Speaker 2: We need to remember this.
• 48:57
  Speaker 2: The easiest idol to get erected in our heart, to take the place that belongs to God in our heart, this first place, the, the.
• 49:06
  Speaker 2: The easiest idol that will get worshiped and bowed down to and served, and all of that.
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: It's not some other God, it's not Apollo, it's not Athena, it's not all, it's not Krishna.
• 49:19
  Speaker 2: The most formidable idol is the God of self, because every man and every woman has, in the fallen heart, the desire to put themselves first.
• 49:32
  Speaker 2: You see how smart God's enemy is in the way he's leading things.
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: The most dangerous idol is to be like.
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: I'm the Lord of my own life.
• 49:41
  Speaker 2: I do what I want.
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: I don't want to be told what to do.
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: There's no other threat to God's place in your heart like the place of yourself in your heart.
• 49:51
  Speaker 2: There's no threat to what does God want, his will, his way in your heart, then the what do I want and my will in my way in our hearts.
• 50:01
  Speaker 2: This is true of all of us.
• 50:03
  Speaker 2: The servant was speaking to his own heart.
• 50:06
  Speaker 2: How, by asking God to direct him, I'm telling you a way to speak to your heart and to love him with all of your heart is to resurrect the act of inquiring prayer in your life.
• 50:18
  Speaker 2: It is one of the best ways to speak to your heart.
• 50:22
  Speaker 2: And don't forget, you cannot walk by faith other than the most general way without hearing.
• 50:33
  Speaker 2: Faith comes by hearing and hearing the rama word, the spoken word of the spirit.
• 50:38
  Speaker 2: We cannot step into the places that can only be stepped into by faith unless we nurture this in our lives Inquire, hear, test, come to full assurance, obey and do it over and over and over again, and you are speaking to your heart in a dramatic way.
• 51:00
  Speaker 2: When you do that, what else?
• 51:03
  Speaker 2: This is the third and final one, psalm 5110.
• 51:05
  Speaker 2: This is David praying Create and me a clean heart.
• 51:08
  Speaker 2: God, whenever we understand the heart rightly, whenever we grow in our depth of perception of what is true in our own hearts, we will pray this prayer and we have to.
• 51:24
  Speaker 2: We have to ask him to do it because we understand.
• 51:26
  Speaker 2: I see a little bit of what's in there and like how could I get this out and get that in and all that.
• 51:33
  Speaker 2: And we come to him in dependence, even in desperation.
• 51:36
  Speaker 2: We say God, you give me a clean heart.
• 51:38
  Speaker 2: God, you please purify my heart, purify my desires.
• 51:44
  Speaker 2: This is the third way that we direct our heart.
• 51:47
  Speaker 2: It's by interceding.
• 51:48
  Speaker 2: And can I just share a testimony about this kind of prayer?
• 51:52
  Speaker 2: Because God answers this prayer.
• 51:55
  Speaker 2: There are some prayers that you know God give me a million dollars.
• 51:59
  Speaker 2: He hasn't answered that prayer in my life yet.
• 52:01
  Speaker 2: But there are some prayers that he tends to answer more than others.
• 52:07
  Speaker 2: I'm sure you've experienced this.
• 52:08
  Speaker 2: This is the kind of prayer that he answers and for the first two years of this church's existence and planting this church.
• 52:17
  Speaker 2: This was actually my number one personal private prayer God, give me a clean heart, renew a steadfast spirit within me.
• 52:28
  Speaker 2: I want my heart to burn for you.
• 52:30
  Speaker 2: I want my heart to beat for you and I can tell there's something in my heart that's weighing it down.
• 52:37
  Speaker 2: There's a way that my heart used to feel that has been mucked up.
• 52:44
  Speaker 2: Most of you would know this church was born out of adversity.
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: It was born out of pain.
• 52:49
  Speaker 2: It was born out of hurt and all that stuff messes up the heart.
• 52:54
  Speaker 2: You know, if you get sadness in the heart it weighs the heart down.
• 52:58
  Speaker 2: The anger in the heart, it weighs the heart down.
• 53:01
  Speaker 2: You know different intents and desires and wants.
• 53:04
  Speaker 2: All that stuff weighs the heart down.
• 53:08
  Speaker 2: It's like spiritual clogging of the arteries.
• 53:12
  Speaker 2: So I just kept asking him clean my heart, clean my heart.
• 53:16
  Speaker 2: And all along the way he was and I could testify he is, he is, you know.
• 53:20
  Speaker 2: I'd say I'm this percent, you know whatever.
• 53:22
  Speaker 2: But I knew, like God, I need my heart to be clean.
• 53:25
  Speaker 2: And as we were approaching our I guess, two year anniversary, the beginning of the third year, I kept hearing him say the third day, and I started to show up with a team and they were like we've been hearing that.
• 53:33
  Speaker 2: I was like, okay, this is not just individual, this is going to be something broader than that, like almost like a resurrection day.
• 53:40
  Speaker 2: You know that the third year was somehow parallel to a third day and I will say that that third year, this last year year, I experienced more heart refining and more heart purifying at an accelerated rate than any other time in my life, and it wasn't just from, like, past years or the past decade, it was things that were deeper than that.
• 53:59
  Speaker 2: I mean, he gave me more than what I was asking for and I can testify I have been raised up in this third year as a metaphorical third day as a result.
• 54:13
  Speaker 2: This is a prayer he answers.
• 54:19
  Speaker 2: So, as we prepare to close today, I want to share with you something that I've been hearing about this year 2024.
• 54:26
  Speaker 2: That it would be a year of an acceleration of the work of God refining hearts.
• 54:34
  Speaker 2: Now, when I first heard that, I was like, ah, I would maybe have preferred it be an acceleration of some other things.
• 54:42
  Speaker 2: But you know, refining is not always the funnest process, but what's on the other side of refining is profound.
• 54:52
  Speaker 2: But what I was hearing the Lord say is that this is going to be a year where there is a great acceleration on refining, that it would be the year where people would reach out for one thing to be done in their heart and they would receive three things.
• 55:06
  Speaker 2: It would be a year where, yes, some of the most profound things would continue to take place at the altar in the way that God does, but it would also be a year where no one would be safe that it would reach to the back row, this refining, and you can test this and ask the Lord to confirm it in your heart, whether it's true or not.
• 55:29
  Speaker 2: But I want to encourage you in 2024, ask and you will receive, seek and you will find, knock on the door will be open, particularly in the area of the refining of the heart.
• 55:42
  Speaker 2: And I want to encourage you that the freedom that's on the other side of refining is one of the most unfound testimonies in Christendom, because people don't want to allow the refining.
• 55:53
  Speaker 2: But the freedom only comes after the refining.
• 55:56
  Speaker 2: The freedom, the ability to be able to then know and receive the love of God, it comes on the other side, the walking without this mixture in the heart, this mixture of intentions and desires, and what we want is one of the most energy draining things taking place in your soul and to have that freedom of the heart getting cleaned of all the admixtures, the freedom from shame, the freedom from fear, the freedom from insecurity.
• 56:28
  Speaker 2: I mean it comes on the other side and it makes it worth it for you, but it also is a great testimony to what he can do.
• 56:38
  Speaker 2: So, as we end, I want us to end in the same place we started, although in a different place in the Bible, going all the way back to Deuteronomy, the fifth book of the Bible, deuteronomy, chapter 6, we're going to read what Jesus was quoting in Mark 12, 28 to 30, he is real, the Lord, our God.
• 56:58
  Speaker 2: The Lord is one.
• 56:59
  Speaker 2: You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your might.
• 57:04
  Speaker 2: These words, which I am commanding you today, they shall be on your heart.
• 57:10
  Speaker 2: So what do we see?
• 57:13
  Speaker 2: We see that since the beginning, this is what God's always been looking for.
• 57:18
  Speaker 2: It's not changed.
• 57:21
  Speaker 2: And despite that, despite this long-standing desire of the Lord to have a people who would love Him with all their heart, soul, mind and strength, it's rare that God receives this.
• 57:32
  Speaker 2: Often he's the recipient, as you know, not of wholehearted love, but of half-hearted love at best.
• 57:38
  Speaker 2: But, church, what is the testimony of our generation and our kids' generation Is that he didn't have to continue to suffer that.
• 57:45
  Speaker 2: What if, as a group of people, we started to earnestly pray?
• 57:48
  Speaker 2: No, god, shape us and refine us to love you with a whole heart.
• 57:53
  Speaker 2: That's our goal, that's our ambition.
• 57:57
  Speaker 2: God, just you loving you with a whole heart, by your grace and in your strength, because it's only possible with you.
• 58:06
  Speaker 2: But, god, would you do it?
• 58:07
  Speaker 2: We're saying yes.
• 58:09
  Speaker 2: We're asking you what if Heaven's history book recorded there were this group of people and they prayed Let me love you with all of my heart, and God answered the prayer and said yes, I will.
• 58:19
  Speaker 2: And Heaven's history books recorded that it actually took place.
• 58:23
  Speaker 2: Would you join me in praying that prayer, because he's worthy of that and so much more?
• 58:29
  Speaker 2: Amen, amen, amen.
• 58:31
  Speaker 2: I'm going to invite us to pray together as we come to the Lord.
• 58:36
  Speaker 2: Lord, we just want to ask you.
• 58:38
  Speaker 2: We just speak to us, god, we want to love you with all of our hearts.
• 58:45
  Speaker 2: God, what are you calling me to do differently?
• 58:50
  Speaker 2: Are you calling me to speak to my heart, not just allow my heart to be directing me.
• 58:55
  Speaker 2: Are you calling me to amplify Inquiring prayer in my life?
• 59:08
  Speaker 2: I was talking to a man recently.
• 59:09
  Speaker 2: He said that God spoke to him a number of years ago about inquiring prayer.
• 59:15
  Speaker 2: Double it.
• 59:15
  Speaker 2: Some of you are already inquiring about some things and he might say the same thing to you In 2024, I want you to double it.
• 59:23
  Speaker 2: Ask me, ask me twice as much what to do, where to go, how to do it.
• 59:32
  Speaker 2: You will be speaking to your heart.
• 59:34
  Speaker 2: Your heart can fall in love with his Lordship over your heart.
• 59:40
  Speaker 2: This is a part of it.
• 59:43
  Speaker 2: God, we ask you to search us and show us.
• 59:56
  Speaker 2: I want to encourage you.
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 2: Don't be afraid to hear truth from God.
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 2: Don't be afraid to hear the truth of what's in your heart from Him.
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 2: You have to understand His blood is greater.
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 2: His mercy is greater.
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 2: As Jesus said, he who is forgiven little loves little.
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 2: By Him, showing you the depth of depravity, you actually will grow more in your love for Him because you'll see the height of His mercy, the power of His blood, the love of a Father.
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 2: Do not be afraid to hear what is true.
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 2: His mercy is greater.
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 2: You don't want to wait until you stand before Him to see.
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 2: We want to see now that we can speak to our hearts and intercede from that place.
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 2: Now, believer, as you're responding, the altars are open.
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 2: If you need to come and make a sacrifice at the altar, you come.
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 2: Respond as he's leading.
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 2: And finally, I want to end by just saying a prayer over you.
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 2: If you're here and you would say, pastor, I want Him to have all of my heart and I admit I need Him to do that work in me.
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 2: I know I can't do it on my own, but you just raise your hand.
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 2: I'm just going to say a prayer for you.
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 2: So Praise the Lord.
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 2: God as I pray over those who are saying Lord, I need your help and I'm asking would you create in me a clean heart?
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 2: I thank you, lord, that I get to pray to the one who says ask anything according to your will and it will be received.
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 2: I thank you, lord, that I get to pray to the one who says ask and you'll receive, seek and you'll find, knock and the door will be opened.
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 2: I thank you that I pray to the one who says you don't have because you do not ask.
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 2: But right now we're coming and we're asking you, lord.
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 2: We are asking you, god, that you would have all of our hearts.
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 2: Have my heart, have our hearts.
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 2: Lord, we pray that you would do this refining work.
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 2: God, I pray that this would be the year where we would hear over and over again it's true, he's doing it, he's refining.
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 2: There's an acceleration, there is a grace for him to do this profound, deep, inner work.
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 2: God, this is what you are looking at above all things.
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 2: And, god, we want you to have our hearts as a home that you are pleased to dwell in.
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 2: And so, lord, we are asking and we are praying that your refining fire would come and that you.
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 2: Purify our hearts, purify my heart, lord.
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 2: We're fine.
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 2: Clear out, god.
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 2: We pray that not only would there be the testimony of clean hearts and purified and refined hearts this year, but the freedom that comes on the other side, the freedom that people have ever, never, ever known.
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 2: Lord, I pray that there be testimonies, one after the other after the other.
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 2: I've lived with the lifetime of this insecurity and I've been set free, and I want to testify about it.
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 2: I have lived with the lifetime of shame and condemnation, and now I have been set free.
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 2: I have lived with the lifetime of knowing that God loves me intellectually, but I have never known it at a heart level, and now I have been able to receive who he truly is and who I am to Him.
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 2: Lord, I am asking God that you would do a work in our hearts.
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 2: Lord, we're praying for an anointing God.
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 2: You said you would do it and we're asking you for it.
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 2: Lord, have my heart, lord.
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 2: I believe that you want to raise up a church, to lead a revolution in the world.
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 2: And, God, we are saying come and have our hearts, that our hearts would burn brightly for you, that you would be restored to your rightful place in your own house your love, the love for you, god, a place of your preferences, a place that prioritizes your presence.
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 2: Lord, come and refine your church.
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 2: Come and refine your bride, jesus, for your own namesake and for your own glory.
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 2: God, I want to pray that you would do such a profound work in hearts that we would begin to hear stories of people saying I could just see the fire in her eyes, I could see the fire in his eyes when she would talk about the Lord and he would talk about the Lord.
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 2: I could see this fire and I knew this isn't just intellectual concept.
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 2: They know him, they love him, and I knew I have to seek out for myself, god.
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 2: I am praying that salvation would come from the testimony of the prayers we're praying right now being answered.
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 2: That people would say I began to see in their face, I began to see in their countenance that they had this love for Jesus and it wasn't self-righteous, it wasn't holier than now, it wasn't I'm better than you.
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 2: It just was love for him and it caught my attention.
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 2: Maybe it's not all just dead religion that's out there.
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 2: Maybe it's not all just dry and dusty religion.
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 2: What if this talk of relationship is real.
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 2: I saw it in their face.
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 2: You can't fake that.
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 2: That's real.
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 2: That's real, don't you believe?
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 2: This is the kind of prayer that our God would want to answer.
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 2: Ask him, ask him.
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 2: I'm just going to tell you.
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 2: When I personally hear the Lord say something like that, I covenant in my heart.
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 2: Lord, I'm going to wear you out with it.
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 2: Then You're going to give a triple grace for refining this year.
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 2: I'm going to tell you what I'm going to do.
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 2: I'm going to have my face on the ground.
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 2: I'm going to have my face at the altar.
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 2: I'm going to get before you.
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 2: I'm going to say it God, refine me, refine me.
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 2: I'm asking, lord, if I know that there is a unique acceleration, I am going to go after it and grab a hold of it, and I understand this is a word that I heard and you've got to test it.
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 2: But if you receive the confirmation, lord, is it true that I want to encourage you?
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 2: Jesus said Violent men sees the kingdom of God by force.
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 2: He was saying I can reach out and grab a hold of the kingdom of God.
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 2: Don't be passive.
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 2: He's saying.
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 2: Be aggressive and going after the kingdom.
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 2: Don't be K Sera Sera.
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 2: Don't be laissez-faire, don't be just whatever happens happens like reach out and aggressively grab a hold of the kingdom of God.
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 2: What if you grabbed a hold in 2024?
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 2: , like you've never grabbed a hold before Ask.
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 2: Do you know that when you begin to ask the Lord for something, you are digging that ditch that will then be filled?
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 2: And I want to comment on behalf of this church family.
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 2: I want to aggressively ask God, have our hearts and have them all.
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 2: Lord, I ask that there would be a raging fire placed within us from your altar and then, when we come together, we're not a bunch of cold coals coming together, waiting, waiting, waiting, needing a lot of from the spirit to finally get a tiny little flicker in our gatherings, but instead we would start to have these blazing coals in our hearts placed there by the tongs of your Holy Spirit, lord Jesus, and that when we come together, there would be a bonfire.
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 2: What if the way that the fire will come and touch this halter and turn a blaze into a bonfire is when we each come and say God, have all of my heart, burn in my heart, lord, and then, when the hearts come together, the fire erupts.
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 2: I want to see it, lord, and I want to see it this year and we're asking you, god and faith that you hear us, and faith that we are praying according to your will.
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 2: Maybe this prayer is the most according to the will prayer you've ever prayed in your life, because he wants all your heart and he wants all my heart.
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 2: We would have our hearts in Jesus' name and all who agreed said amen, amen.
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 2: I'm going to encourage us to stand together.
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 2: We're going to officially dismiss.
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 2: If you feel like the Lord is still working in your heart, listen, you can stay.
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 2: We're going to have a couple of worship songs together.
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 2: The altars are open.
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 2: As you know, the deal around here is the worship never ends.
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 2: It's been going for over 10 months right here in this place and we will continue on.
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 2: This makes our service in things always a little kind of awkward, but as you leave, of course, get your kids and hope you guys enjoy the rest of your day.
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 2: If you need prayer, our prayer teams are available right in the back of the room.
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 2: We'd love to pray for you.
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 2: Thank you, guys for coming out this second weekend of 2024.
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 2: Blessings everybody and goodbye.