Latest / The OneCry Podcast / #167 Living Vertically (3 - Transforming Our Horizontal Lives)

Transcript

#167 Living Vertically (3 - Transforming Our Horizontal Lives) · The OneCry Podcast

• 0:01
  If you've got a neighbor you don't love, if you've got a city you don't love,
• 0:06
  if you've got people in another political party that you just despise,
• 0:10
  it's probably because we are not setting the Lord continually before our face.
• 0:12
  Music.
• 0:20
  Welcome to the One Cry Podcast, a nationwide call for spiritual awakening.
• 0:25
  The goal, accelerating the movement of God through sharing revival truth, stories, and reports.
• 0:36
  Hey, well, welcome to the OneCry podcast. I'm Kyle Reno.
• 0:40
  I'm with my co-host, partner in crime, longtime friend in the faith,
• 0:45
  Bill Eliff. You doing all right over there, buddy?
• 0:47
  I'm here, man. I'm here and good to be with you, Kyle. Wow. That's awesome.
• 0:53
  Well, listen, I just want to say to our listener, we are honored that you'd give us time.
• 0:57
  I mean, this started in Bill's heart and the One Cry ministry,
• 1:01
  and to give us a few minutes to really, Lord willing, help you in your personal walk with God,
• 1:08
  to be a person that wants to know the ways of God, how to walk with Him intimately,
• 1:13
  but also, man, to be a people that But pray that one cries about teaching,
• 1:17
  that God has a heart to hear our cry, to believe on behalf of the next great move of God.
• 1:23
  So we hope that helps you. I hope you let others know about it.
• 1:27
  And man, we've been two weeks, Bill, in a series on living vertically.
• 1:32
  Yeah, it's rich, man.
• 1:34
  I mean, we listen. Y'all think that we get fired up on here when you're listening.
• 1:39
  You should hear the before and after.
• 1:42
  There's a sermon series coming to a church near you.
• 1:45
  So it's fun. But we know now that in light of God's word, that if we would learn
• 1:52
  to be a people that live vertically.
• 1:55
  It changes everything about our horizontal lives.
• 2:00
  But there's a war for that. There's a war to keep that perspective.
• 2:05
  And, man, I know, Bill, you're going to land us practical because we've been
• 2:08
  looking at, if we look up, here's attributes, nature, character of God. Remember who he is.
• 2:14
  But how do we learn to do that in everyday ways?
• 2:17
  You know, have you ever watched on the Weather Channel during some guys out,
• 2:22
  you know, in the middle of a hurricane and he's standing there trying to stand
• 2:29
  upright and he just keeps getting blown by the wind, you know.
• 2:35
  And I saw a guy one time just get completely blown over. It wasn't so scary.
• 2:42
  It would have been laughable, you know. But the problem is we live in a world that's pushing us.
• 2:50
  And the world and the flesh and the devil are formidable enemies to keep us from looking at God,
• 3:00
  to keep us from living vertically instead of just living this way.
• 3:08
  And we know we're not saying that we don't live this way. We do live this way. We live with people.
• 3:13
  But you can't live rightly this way horizontally until you live rightly vertically.
• 3:21
  And we need to set our minds there, set our hearts there, and see God and just live in his presence.
• 3:31
  And as you've been talking about this the last couple of weeks,
• 3:35
  Kyle, I keep being drawn to Psalm 16.
• 3:40
  I've been studying it for really several months and just kind of meditating
• 3:46
  on this glorious chapter.
• 3:49
  Now, this chapter is written by a man who we love so much because he lived vertically.
• 4:00
  And the one time that we see him
• 4:06
  taking his eyes off the father and living horizontally was so disastrous.
• 4:13
  And it was disastrous in light of the fact that he'd lived a very vertical life
• 4:18
  for many, many years. That man, of course, was David.
• 4:22
  And we have the Psalms that I don't know if there's any book of the Bible that's
• 4:29
  more precious to more people than the Psalms.
• 4:32
  And it's because they're written by a man who lived vertically all the time,
• 4:38
  who looked vertically all the time. And the epitome of that is here in Psalm 16.
• 4:48
  And let me just point us in. And Kyle, I want us to just talk about this a little
• 4:54
  bit and then pray with our listeners.
• 4:57
  First of all, he says in verse one, and we've got two different versions of the scripture here.
• 5:03
  I have like the right one and he has the standard.
• 5:09
  That's for another podcast. Yeah, that's right. We have a whole podcast, a whole series on that.
• 5:15
  But verse one, he says, preserve me, O God, I take refuge in you.
• 5:21
  I don't take refuge in a thing, in a plan.
• 5:26
  I take refuge in you. And I love this.
• 5:30
  I said to the Lord, you are my Lord.
• 5:36
  I have no good besides you. I just love that, Kyle.
• 5:40
  I mean, he just right from the beginning, he just says, Lord, you're it.
• 5:45
  And I don't have anywhere else to go. Oh, I don't have anywhere else I want to go.
• 5:52
  I don't have anywhere else I need to go. I want to go vertical.
• 5:57
  I have no good besides you. And then he says this, the next couple of verses,
• 6:04
  he says, as for the saints,
• 6:06
  and he talks about those who are living vertically, those who know the Lord
• 6:10
  and walk with him, who are in the earth, they are the majestic ones in whom is all my delight.
• 6:18
  And the sorrows of those who bartered for another God, all the other people
• 6:23
  out here who are living for the gods of power, pleasure, materialism,
• 6:27
  and they're bartering, and they're paying their soul for this,
• 6:30
  and they're giving their life for this.
• 6:32
  The sorrows of those who bartered for another God will be multiplied.
• 6:37
  And the psalmist says, David says, I'm not going to pour out their drink offerings
• 6:42
  of blood, nor will I take their name on my lips.
• 6:48
  In other words, a guy's got to make a decision.
• 6:52
  Where, who is your God? Who's your God? What, where's, where's the God you're
• 6:57
  going to live for go after?
• 6:59
  And I just think of right now with all the media going on and I just watch people
• 7:06
  and they're just bartering their souls.
• 7:08
  I mean, they're just selling their souls, trying to get something over here, but not David. it.
• 7:15
  He says, I've come to the point where I realize that I have no other God but you. You are my God.
• 7:24
  I've settled that. And I have no good besides you. Isn't that beautiful?
• 7:32
  And then he goes a little farther and he says, the Lord is the portion of my inheritance.
• 7:41
  Now, An inheritance in an Israelite's day was everything because they didn't have a lot.
• 7:48
  And an inheritance was usually what the next generation had to start their life
• 7:57
  was the inheritance that came from their fathers.
• 7:59
  And it might not have been much. It might have been a little plot of ground.
• 8:03
  It may have been a herd of sheep. uh but he says uh that the lord is a portion
• 8:11
  of my narratives i get the lord.
• 8:14
  And and you are my cup of blessing and you support my lot and and these lines
• 8:21
  of the inheritance think of a portion of ground have fallen to me in pleasant
• 8:27
  places it's just so pleasant.
• 8:30
  My heritage is beautiful to me.
• 8:34
  So I'll bless the Lord. I'll just bless the Lord who has counseled me.
• 8:40
  And, and then here's where I wanted us to land Kyle.
• 8:45
  Yeah. He says, indeed, my mind now instructs me in the night. Yeah.
• 8:52
  I have set the Lord continually before me.
• 8:59
  And because he is at my right hand, I'll not be shaken.
• 9:04
  And my heart is glad and my glory, which means my whole being just rejoices.
• 9:11
  And my flesh will also dwell securely.
• 9:16
  Now, there's more that he says there.
• 9:18
  But, Kyle, we've been talking about how to live vertically. You know, it's so critical.
• 9:22
  And when you do, you start seeing God as creator, as the lover of your soul,
• 9:29
  as, you know, all these things that you, we talked about.
• 9:32
  But that doesn't happen overnight.
• 9:36
  In fact, not only does it not happen overnight, there's this wind of the world
• 9:42
  and the flesh and the devil that's pushing us horizontal all the time.
• 9:46
  And uh everybody around us
• 9:49
  is bartering for other gods and there
• 9:52
  has to be a deliberate choice doesn't there yeah for us to live vertically i'm
• 9:59
  looking at several of these passages of scripture and these declarations that
• 10:05
  david makes you know about he says i love that he said i say to the Lord.
• 10:10
  It's that you are my Lord.
• 10:16
  I'm coming vertically for you and I'm saying, you're it. You're all I got.
• 10:22
  You're all I want. I have made some declarations, some decisions here. You're my portion.
• 10:30
  You're my inheritance. You're my future. I'm not looking for another portion.
• 10:35
  I'm not. I'm not trading. trading, that which is eternal for these things that are temporal.
• 10:43
  And it's interesting, Bill, it makes me think, like, he wrote this down.
• 10:49
  Like, he wrote this inspired by the Holy Spirit, obviously. David's making this
• 10:54
  declaration about who God is to him.
• 10:57
  And it's not just a one-time thing. It's this moment, but it's continual.
• 11:02
  You know, it's continual that I have decided that my whole future is tied up
• 11:11
  to being that my God is ultimately king.
• 11:15
  And I have set the Lord before me like he's I'm living. I'm living all my life.
• 11:24
  It's almost like Joshua, you know, that great final sermon saying,
• 11:30
  you know, you can choose the gods on the other side of the river,
• 11:33
  but that's for me in my house.
• 11:36
  I will choose the Lord. I mean, he's the Lord. He's my portion.
• 11:39
  I got nothing else. But with him, I've got everything.
• 11:44
  I've got everything. So, you know, it's interesting as you're talking about
• 11:49
  that, I think there is a choice against and a choice towards.
• 11:57
  So I've been thinking about this matter of a presence-centered life and how
• 12:03
  do you live 24-7 in the presence of God.
• 12:06
  That doesn't happen by accident. and you have to learn to abide in the Lord.
• 12:16
  You have to learn how to resist distractions.
• 12:20
  So your buddies are all going this way. The world is going this way.
• 12:26
  You know, you think, well, man, what would give me really joy is just binge
• 12:29
  out all night on something here.
• 12:34
  And no, that's not my God.
• 12:38
  That's not what will give me good so you have to resist that i will not i will not choose.
• 12:45
  The gods the the sorrows of those who have bartered for other gods their sorrows
• 12:52
  just multiply right so child talk about this with me for a minute yeah he says
• 12:59
  i have set and that That word set,
• 13:01
  I studied that a little bit in the Hebrew.
• 13:05
  It is a determined, deliberate, here I stand, there is no other decision.
• 13:12
  I have set the Lord.
• 13:15
  Now look at this word and let's talk about it for a minute.
• 13:19
  Because I think it's the key, continually before me.
• 13:24
  I have set the Lord continually before me. If you're listening to this podcast,
• 13:31
  say this out loud where you are with me, unless you're like in class and you're
• 13:37
  listening, you could be listening to a teacher.
• 13:39
  I have set the Lord continually before me.
• 13:46
  What a great verse. So what does it mean, Kyle, when he says.
• 13:51
  Practically. Yeah. Continually. How do we set the Lord continually before us?
• 13:58
  In my mind, David shows us two moves in this passage of Scripture.
• 14:05
  It's away from that which is normative, like to be consumed with the things
• 14:10
  of this world, and toward the Lord.
• 14:13
  Like it it's this constant decision
• 14:17
  that i mean the pull of this the
• 14:20
  in the honestly the moment that that the
• 14:23
  only moment we see in scripture or one of i
• 14:26
  should say but the predominant where david's not
• 14:28
  david is when he doesn't do that you know so when david doesn't turn from a
• 14:34
  distraction a temptation of just a gravitational pull toward living horizontally
• 14:41
  you know so he he He forsakes that and then reestablishes his.
• 14:47
  He makes the decision. I'm going to gaze upon the Lord. I'm going to spend time with God.
• 14:53
  I'm going to meditate on his law.
• 14:55
  I'm going to rejoice. I can't wait to lead people into procession into the house of God.
• 15:02
  You know, it's this constant two moves you're seeing away from and toward him. Yeah.
• 15:10
  Yeah. And on the and on the towards side.
• 15:15
  Yeah. So I've been thinking about this a lot for a year. Yeah.
• 15:22
  What for me, there are multiple choices I have to make to set the Lord continually before me.
• 15:34
  And we're going to see in a minute the results of that life.
• 15:37
  But there are multiple choices.
• 15:40
  One is a choice for morning and evening prayer.
• 15:46
  Now, some are more, you know, larks and some more owls and I get all that.
• 15:53
  But there's something about like for me, I'm a morning guy. There's something about.
• 16:00
  And it took years, honestly. When I was a kid, I was sporadic more than I, you know.
• 16:07
  And when I had eight kids at home, it was way harder. I had to get up way earlier.
• 16:14
  But there's something about this is part of the setting the Lord continually before me.
• 16:20
  I'm going to get up and meet with the Lord. I'm going to find time to meet with
• 16:24
  the Lord in an undistracted way because that kind of sets the whole day.
• 16:30
  We could talk about that a lot.
• 16:34
  But there's also something about how do you pray without ceasing?
• 16:41
  How do you set him?
• 16:44
  When he says continually, that means continually. manually, how do you consciously
• 16:50
  choose and think about him throughout the day?
• 16:54
  What have you found helpful in that way?
• 16:57
  Man, I'm interestingly just living right where you're at in my mind and heart.
• 17:04
  So I think you got to have anchor points like that in life and day.
• 17:08
  So that morning and evening, you know, like I have some practical rhythm points
• 17:13
  that I'm these God, I'm giving you this.
• 17:16
  And that's not the end. It's just the beginning. Yeah, absolutely.
• 17:19
  Yeah, and I'm concluding here.
• 17:23
  That's not the end. It's just I'm closing a loop to rightly start another one
• 17:29
  on the next day. But to...
• 17:33
  Bring to mind the presence of the Lord everywhere all the time.
• 17:41
  As I'm engaging with someone to be willingly weird, I just say,
• 17:47
  well, let's talk to the Lord about that.
• 17:52
  I'm anticipating. I learned this from Jet. You love him. You know, David here.
• 17:58
  Somebody asked me about Jet. I said, what's Jet like? I said,
• 18:00
  well, I've learned this. You're talking about David Jet. David Jett.
• 18:03
  Yeah, David Jett. Yeah. Sorry, I should probably clarify that.
• 18:06
  They're not an airplane jet, a person. Yeah, right. That's a presence guy.
• 18:11
  And this is cumulative work of God in his life.
• 18:14
  Let me tell you what I have learned, that he anticipates God.
• 18:22
  There's this in him belief throughout the day that God is here,
• 18:27
  God is near, and he's my father.
• 18:29
  And so he anticipates the Lord's prayer and engages the Lord on a conversational
• 18:36
  way personally and with other people.
• 18:39
  And if I'm going on a walk or if I'm on a drive between the office and a lunch,
• 18:44
  that I'm just, I'm thinking about him.
• 18:48
  You know, I'm conversing and listening and that my mind's set.
• 18:53
  My mind could go a million ways,
• 18:55
  but I'm going to choose to in this next moment to set my mind on him.
• 19:00
  And I might zone out for a while, but I'm going to choose to again. Yeah.
• 19:04
  And, you know, I think this is driven by two or three things.
• 19:10
  One, it's driven by desperation.
• 19:13
  Yeah. I have no, he says in verse two, I have no good besides you.
• 19:21
  I agree. You know, where can I go? no, you alone have the words of eternal life.
• 19:25
  So, so I got nothing without him.
• 19:28
  So I need to come to him constantly for direction, for help,
• 19:32
  for just encouragement, for consolation. And, uh.
• 19:37
  And, uh, so, and there's another thing, but I just completely forgot about it,
• 19:42
  but I can't remember what it was.
• 19:44
  He really helps my memory. That's the other thing.
• 19:47
  Yeah. That desperation. I want to tell you a little story.
• 19:50
  So a few weeks ago I was in New York and I'm not a fan of New York.
• 19:55
  You know, I just don't, I don't really like being there. Never have.
• 20:00
  And uh so i had this
• 20:02
  meeting and they told
• 20:05
  they gave us the wrong address and i came
• 20:08
  out of my it was eight o'clock i was 7 45 on uh on this morning and i came out
• 20:16
  on this in brooklyn and you cannot fathom brooklyn at eight o'clock in the morning i mean people
• 20:27
  mashing around everywhere smells of every description so much marijuana smell,
• 20:35
  that i got high just walking down the street and i've never been high in my life,
• 20:40
  but i mean you know you know what i'm saying and there's and there's guys laying
• 20:43
  on the and all kind of you know go in the bathroom on your feet if you're not
• 20:50
  careful i mean it's It's literally like that.
• 20:53
  So I'm walking this block, two blocks, and I'm trying to find this place.
• 20:58
  And they gave me the wrong address. And I'm just walking, walking, walking.
• 21:01
  And I'm just, I don't like it. I want to be home in my recliner.
• 21:06
  I'm just not, you know, it's just not good.
• 21:09
  And finally, I get around and I find a guy who knows the directions.
• 21:14
  And he said, oh, they gave you the wrong address. Here's how you go.
• 21:17
  So I start walking again, same path. I'd walk right back.
• 21:22
  And the Lord, in his kindness, said, hey, Bill.
• 21:26
  He said, this is your elder brother, Jesus.
• 21:32
  Do you know that you could have been talking that you just wasted this whole 30 minutes?
• 21:37
  We could have been talking with each other. Mm hmm.
• 21:41
  And I thought, oh, my goodness. I just lost 30 minutes.
• 21:47
  I could have been talking with a king. And so now listen to this.
• 21:51
  I just started talking to Jesus.
• 21:55
  Lord, what are you? Good morning. And what's your assignment today?
• 22:01
  And Kyle, if I'm lying, I'm not. This is not an exaggeration.
• 22:05
  In five minutes, I suddenly loved New York. Wow.
• 22:14
  It was the weirdest thing. I mean, it was like just downloaded into my soul.
• 22:21
  I started looking at these people, and I thought about the great church that
• 22:26
  was there, Brooklyn Tabernacle, and how they loved those people,
• 22:29
  and how lives have been transformed. form.
• 22:34
  I think I'll love New York the rest of my life. You know why that happened? I went vertical.
• 22:42
  And I got close to the heart of my elder brother, Jesus. And he loves New York.
• 22:50
  He just loves New York. If you got a neighbor you don't love,
• 22:54
  if you got a city you don't love, if you got people in another political party
• 22:59
  that you just despise, it's probably because we are not setting the Lord continually before our face.
• 23:09
  And there's something to me about the exercise, learning how to take every gap
• 23:17
  moment and turn to the Lord in prayer.
• 23:22
  This is how we do this. I'll tell you another quick story, and then maybe we'll pray together.
• 23:29
  But Kyle, we have a missionary couple in our church that oversees our global
• 23:36
  engaged ministry, and they're incredible.
• 23:40
  They're missionaries in Vietnam for a long time.
• 23:43
  And when I was talking about this one day, she came to me later and she said,
• 23:49
  Bill, I've hesitated, but I need to tell you something. I think the Lord wants me to tell you.
• 23:55
  And I said, well, you know, fire away. She said, look, years ago,
• 24:00
  I was on the mission field.
• 24:01
  I was raising my kids. I was trying to learn the language, the Vietnamese language.
• 24:06
  It was so hard. And she said, I was kind of miserable, honestly.
• 24:11
  And I was doing a homeschool with my kids. And we were memorizing scripture.
• 24:16
  But it was just, you know, I was just kind of pushing as much scripture as I could into them.
• 24:22
  And I wasn't doing real well. And she said, a salty old veteran missionary came
• 24:28
  to me and said one question.
• 24:33
  She said, how are you practicing the presence of God?
• 24:39
  And she said, I just had never thought about it like that.
• 24:43
  Well, I just, she got so desperate. She asked the Lord and she said,
• 24:48
  Lord, how can I practice your presence?
• 24:51
  And he said, you see this, this verse that you were teaching your children.
• 24:57
  He said, I want you to memorize the first line of that.
• 25:02
  And, and she's a very busy person, you know, and an overachiever.
• 25:08
  And she said, oh, Lord, I'll memorize the whole chapter.
• 25:11
  No, just the first. I don't want you to memorize the second line.
• 25:15
  I want you to memorize the first line. And all day long, I want you to meditate on that first line.
• 25:23
  She said, I meditated on that first line for two months.
• 25:31
  Wow. And it was like all day long, I just kept thinking about this one line and the richness of it.
• 25:41
  And I just chewed it up and chewed it up, and it got down in my soul.
• 25:45
  And one day, the Lord brought by a little Vietnamese lady and said, that's for her.
• 25:54
  And she said, I gave it to her. And the Lord said, okay, let's go to the second line.
• 26:02
  And she said, Bill, for 20 years.
• 26:06
  I have set the Lord, is what she's saying, continually before me by meditating
• 26:13
  and memorizing Scripture and praying it through.
• 26:17
  Wow. Beautiful. Amen. Well, imagine what would change in our lives today,
• 26:22
  I'd say to our listeners, if we would learn how to continually set the Lord before. Set the Lord.
• 26:28
  Yeah. The invitation has been sent out.
• 26:32
  Yeah. The Lord has invited all of humanity to come and dine with him.
• 26:37
  You know, through the finished work of Christ, the door is open. The table is set.
• 26:42
  The question is, will we come? Will we come in the everyday way?
• 26:47
  So let's do this. If you would, wherever you are, our listeners,
• 26:51
  would you just start to engage the Lord with all of your heart,
• 26:55
  soul, mind, and strength right there?
• 26:57
  I'm going to pray for us, and Bill's going to close us in a second.
• 27:01
  But why don't you ask him the practical applications of this truth to show you
• 27:09
  how to start setting your mind, your heart,
• 27:13
  your schedule, your rhythms before the Lord.
• 27:19
  Father, I'm going to ask in a new way.
• 27:22
  Lord, I know that these truths are resonating with me to just to give you my thoughts.
• 27:28
  Lord, so I pray for us as a people, Lord, that you'd have a people whose minds
• 27:33
  are continually stayed on you, that you're our lot, you're our portion,
• 27:38
  that that would be measurable in our rhythms,
• 27:42
  in our schedules, in our anchor points of our day,
• 27:47
  to the moving, flowing,
• 27:51
  ebbing parts of our life that you...
• 27:54
  Would allow us to dine with you, to be with you, to be loved by you,
• 28:00
  and that you would find willing participants.
• 28:04
  I pray that for your glory's sake.
• 28:07
  Lord, I pray that what you're saying to us in these podcasts and even today
• 28:16
  would go beyond a head nod,
• 28:20
  a mind agreement, to a repentance.
• 28:27
  And Lord, repentance is not, we know, a bad thing.
• 28:32
  It's saying, oh, oh yes, Lord, and adjusting our life, coming into agreement with what God thinks.
• 28:42
  And Lord, so for us to say, Lord, oh, Lord, I have bartered for this world's
• 28:52
  gods, and my sorrows are multiplying.
• 28:57
  And Lord, I come and I want to set the Lord before me continually because I
• 29:06
  have no good besides thee.
• 29:08
  That's right. And apart from you, I have nothing on this earth.
• 29:11
  And I pray, Father, that you would show us the practical ways to continually turn upward,
• 29:22
  continually look to you and continually fix our mind on the things of where Christ is continually,
• 29:31
  Lord, to pray without ceasing.
• 29:35
  So show us practically.
• 29:37
  Thank you for this wonderful missionary who you showed her practically how to
• 29:43
  set her mind continually on the Lord.
• 29:49
  And I pray, Father, that you would take us there too.
• 29:53
  And I pray that we'd hear the great results. It may not be till heaven,
• 29:57
  but we hear the great results of many people who've done that,
• 30:02
  Lord, and what happened.
• 30:05
  In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen.
• 30:09
  Well, again, to our listeners, so honored for your time, and I just pray that
• 30:14
  these weeks will help you, have help to you. Maybe you missed one, you go back.
• 30:19
  How to live vertically and knowing that'll impact not just you,
• 30:23
  but others, your church as well.
• 30:24
  So if it's been an encouragement to you, it was never intended to stop with
• 30:28
  you, let it spread through you to somebody else, send a link, let somebody know.
• 30:32
  And hey, if this has been an encouragement. We like to be encouraged.
• 30:36
  So maybe let us know, respond to it.
• 30:39
  And we're just honored to be a part of the journey and look forward.
• 30:43
  Music.