Latest / The OneCry Podcast / #231 A Presence Centered Life: Setting the Lord Continually Before Us

Transcript

#231 A Presence Centered Life: Setting the Lord Continually Before Us · The OneCry Podcast

• 0:03
  Speaker0: Well, this world is a shaky place to live,
• 0:08
  Speaker0: and there's a lot of fear and anxiety and worry unless you set the Lord continually
• 0:17
  Speaker0: and you have His awareness of His presence,
• 0:21
  Speaker0: the conscious awareness of His presence continually.
• 0:27
  Speaker0: Welcome to the One Cry Podcast, a nationwide call for spiritual awakening.
• 0:33
  Speaker0: The goal, accelerating the movement of God through sharing revival truth, stories, and reports.
• 0:43
  Speaker1: Well, hey, welcome to the One Cry Podcast. I'm Kyle Reno with Bill Eliff,
• 0:48
  Speaker1: my brother from another mother. How are you doing over there, buddy?
• 0:52
  Speaker0: Good. You Alabama flash. By the way, I was just recently with Kyle's brother,
• 1:01
  Speaker0: Zach Reno, who is a pastor in Morris, Alabama.
• 1:07
  Speaker0: And I had the unbelievable privilege
• 1:10
  Speaker0: of driving down Reno lane
• 1:14
  Speaker0: which is uh the little
• 1:17
  Speaker0: short street is it street the little
• 1:20
  Speaker0: street that they that they uh that
• 1:24
  Speaker0: they grew up on and it's not very long but anyway and i saw the house i grew
• 1:29
  Speaker0: up in and i was coming out and i and i told zach i said hey pull over here i
• 1:34
  Speaker0: want to take a picture of the sign that says reno street but take a picture
• 1:38
  Speaker0: of the sign i sent it to all my elders back at our church.
• 1:44
  Speaker0: Where Kyle and Zach both served in two churches of our family churches in the past.
• 1:50
  Speaker0: And they started talking on the elder thread saying, what are all those bullet holes in that sign?
• 2:01
  Speaker0: And they began to tell stories of what they figured those bullet holes came
• 2:06
  Speaker0: from, from the Reno brothers.
• 2:08
  Speaker0: So anyway, I just want to tell that little historical bit of understanding So
• 2:14
  Speaker0: you'll know who you're listening to on the OneCraft.
• 2:20
  Speaker1: Hey, true story one time.
• 2:23
  Speaker1: I was in light of Reno Brothers.
• 2:26
  Speaker1: I was sitting watching the History Channel. I know you're a history buff and
• 2:30
  Speaker1: you love that kind of stuff.
• 2:31
  Speaker1: I was watching the History and they were setting up this coming episode.
• 2:35
  Speaker1: And it was about train robberies.
• 2:37
  Speaker1: The whole thing was about train robberies. And they said the first episode will
• 2:42
  Speaker1: detail the first train robbery, not documented train robbery in the United States
• 2:48
  Speaker1: of America by the Reno brothers.
• 2:52
  Speaker0: Oh, my goodness. And we robbed something and didn't don't remember it. Yeah.
• 3:00
  Speaker1: Yeah. Well, you know, Reno's need. Yeah. Reno's need redemption from the very
• 3:05
  Speaker1: beginning, from the very beginning.
• 3:06
  Speaker1: Well, there's always more. Right. There's always more to the story.
• 3:11
  Speaker0: Yeah.
• 3:13
  Speaker1: And I know, Bill, today, man, you want to talk to us about more.
• 3:17
  Speaker0: Yeah, I really do. Kyle, for two years, I have been meditating on one psalm.
• 3:29
  Speaker0: I just can't get it out of my mind. And I would just, of course,
• 3:34
  Speaker0: I've been studying about the present-centered life and written on it.
• 3:38
  Speaker0: And so I've been focused on that quite a bit. And one of the greatest passages that deals with that.
• 3:44
  Speaker0: It comes from the pen and the inspired, Holy Spirit-inspired writing of a man
• 3:53
  Speaker0: who walked that kind of presence-centered life named David.
• 3:57
  Speaker0: And Psalm 16, in fact, if you're listening today and you happen to be able to
• 4:04
  Speaker0: pull out your Bible, just pull that out to this glorious Psalm.
• 4:10
  Speaker0: And I think the Lord wants us to see something. I want to begin with this question,
• 4:16
  Speaker0: and that is, do you have all of God that you think you're supposed to have?
• 4:22
  Speaker0: And does God have all of you that he desires?
• 4:29
  Speaker0: I remember one time hearing Adrian Rogers, great pastor, say,
• 4:36
  Speaker0: I don't know how much of God you have, but I know this, you have all you want.
• 4:39
  Speaker0: Now, he didn't mean he understood that we have the spirit, we have all of God
• 4:45
  Speaker0: that we'll ever have living inside of us.
• 4:47
  Speaker0: But what he meant was, are you consciously aware of and experiencing God in a way that God desires?
• 4:55
  Speaker0: Because there's always more. There's just always more.
• 5:00
  Speaker0: And I want us to see that in Psalm 16 in a beautiful way.
• 5:08
  Speaker0: And what a present-centered life. I mean by that,
• 5:12
  Speaker0: a man, a woman who's learned how to live in the daily conscious awareness of
• 5:18
  Speaker0: the presence of God and to walk and live a God-initiated life,
• 5:25
  Speaker0: what they're experiencing.
• 5:29
  Speaker0: So let me just mention two or three things, as we see in Psalm 16,
• 5:33
  Speaker0: about what a present-centered life is about.
• 5:37
  Speaker0: A presence in our life has, or man or woman, has found their God.
• 5:44
  Speaker0: They found their God. They settled the issue. Now, look what David says in Psalm
• 5:49
  Speaker0: 16, 1. Preserve me, O God.
• 5:51
  Speaker0: I take refuge in you. I said to the Lord, you are my Lord, and I have no good beside you.
• 6:01
  Speaker0: And as for the saints who are in the earth, there are majestic ones in whom
• 6:05
  Speaker0: is all my delight. But the sorrows of those who have bartered for another God will be multiplied.
• 6:13
  Speaker0: And I will not pour out their drink offerings of blood, nor will I take their
• 6:17
  Speaker0: names upon my lips, because the Lord is the portion of my inheritance and my cup.
• 6:25
  Speaker0: And so what was David saying? David's saying, look, I've settled the issue in my life.
• 6:32
  Speaker0: All of us have gods, right? Everybody has a God, whether you realize it or not.
• 6:37
  Speaker0: It may be the Lord God, capital G, or it may be the gods of this world,
• 6:45
  Speaker0: little g's, the gods of power, the God of comfort, the God of pleasure,
• 6:51
  Speaker0: the God of materialism, the God of immorality.
• 6:57
  Speaker0: But David said, I've just settled the issue, and that is, you are my God.
• 7:04
  Speaker0: You are my Lord. Now, why was this? Well, what he said was, is very logical.
• 7:11
  Speaker0: He said, you're my God because there's no good anywhere else.
• 7:16
  Speaker0: Verse three, he says, I have no good besides you. I mean, where would I go?
• 7:22
  Speaker0: What else would be better than this? And it just makes,
• 7:26
  Speaker0: honestly, logical sense to see this and to settle the issue that,
• 7:33
  Speaker0: as for me, as Joshua said in my house, we're going to serve the Lord.
• 7:37
  Speaker0: If you want to serve the gods that were on the other side of the river,
• 7:42
  Speaker0: Joshua said, then that's fine. Go do that.
• 7:44
  Speaker0: But as for me in my house, we're going to serve the Lord.
• 7:48
  Speaker0: But I don't want those other gods. And here's another thing he says,
• 7:51
  Speaker0: because there's multiplied sorrow everywhere else.
• 7:57
  Speaker0: I love the way the New American Standard translate this.
• 8:02
  Speaker0: He says, those who have bartered for another God have multiplied their sorrows.
• 8:09
  Speaker0: And a barter means to wrangle, to sell something to get something else, right?
• 8:17
  Speaker0: You wheel and deal to get something else. And people all the time take their
• 8:24
  Speaker0: time and their money and their resources and their youth and their reputation and their family,
• 8:31
  Speaker0: and they just barter with it to see if I can get a little God for me,
• 8:36
  Speaker0: a little more pleasure, a little more power,
• 8:39
  Speaker0: a little more recognition,
• 8:42
  Speaker0: a little more fame.
• 8:44
  Speaker0: But all you're doing is just multiplying your sorrows because God never meant
• 8:51
  Speaker0: for you to have any other God.
• 8:54
  Speaker0: I mean, isn't this what he just said over and over again?
• 8:58
  Speaker0: I'm the Lord, your God. Don't have any other gods besides me.
• 9:06
  Speaker0: And David had settled this.
• 9:09
  Speaker0: Dear friend as you're listening to this podcast every godly really successful fruitful.
• 9:22
  Speaker0: Peaceful person i know has settled that issue and i just want to ask you have you.
• 9:30
  Speaker0: I mean, have you really settled the issue or are you still playing around thinking
• 9:34
  Speaker0: that there might be some God out there that's better than the Lord God?
• 9:41
  Speaker0: You'll never have the more that God intends for you to have until you settle this.
• 9:47
  Speaker0: But secondly, a present-centered person not only has found their God,
• 9:55
  Speaker0: a present-centered man or woman is focused on their God.
• 10:01
  Speaker0: Now, I want you to listen real carefully. I know many professing Christians
• 10:08
  Speaker0: who have made an initial choice for God,
• 10:13
  Speaker0: but they are making no daily choice to have that God in the center of their life.
• 10:23
  Speaker0: There's no daily passion.
• 10:26
  Speaker0: There's no fervent desire to seek the Lord with all of their heart.
• 10:32
  Speaker0: I remember talking to one guy in a church I was pastoring and I said something
• 10:38
  Speaker0: about praying and he said, yeah, well, you'll have to ask.
• 10:41
  Speaker0: He was laughing. He said, you'll have to ask my wife. She's the one that does all the praying.
• 10:45
  Speaker0: And I knew this guy and I knew the lack of fruit, spiritual fruit in his life.
• 10:51
  Speaker0: And I just thought in my mind, well, I guess you just decided I don't want to walk with God.
• 10:56
  Speaker0: I'll just let my wife walk with God because you can't walk with God and not
• 10:59
  Speaker0: talk to him. and not pray.
• 11:04
  Speaker0: Uh, so if you want to have a real vital relationship, you've got to not only
• 11:10
  Speaker0: choose the Lord, your God,
• 11:13
  Speaker0: but you also have to have a daily focus on the Lord, your God.
• 11:19
  Speaker0: And this was the difference in, in, in David.
• 11:22
  Speaker0: And I love what he said in verse seven of Psalm 16. Listen to this.
• 11:28
  Speaker0: This is so profound. I will bless the Lord who has counseled me.
• 11:34
  Speaker0: Indeed, my mind instructs me in the night.
• 11:38
  Speaker0: I have set the Lord continually before me.
• 11:44
  Speaker0: I have set the Lord continually before me. Now, I have these,
• 11:52
  Speaker0: if you're seeing by video, I've got these glasses that I wear.
• 11:57
  Speaker0: And what's sad about this story is I've worn glasses since the eighth grade, right?
• 12:06
  Speaker0: And I'm not in the eighth grade anymore. So all of these years for decades.
• 12:13
  Speaker0: And something interesting, and you know this if you wear glasses,
• 12:16
  Speaker0: is I get out of bed in the morning. And the first thing I do is reach down on
• 12:23
  Speaker0: the end table and put my glasses on.
• 12:27
  Speaker0: I place them right here before me.
• 12:29
  Speaker0: And you know what? I don't take them off all day.
• 12:33
  Speaker0: And I finally go to bed at night and I read a little bit in bed at night and
• 12:37
  Speaker0: often. So I'll lay down in bed.
• 12:41
  Speaker0: And when I'm finished reading and turn out the light, I take these glasses off
• 12:46
  Speaker0: and place them on the nightstand.
• 12:50
  Speaker0: I set them before me. I do that because putting on these glasses,
• 12:54
  Speaker0: having them in their proper position gives me vision.
• 12:59
  Speaker0: It gives me clarity.
• 13:01
  Speaker0: I can see. Things make sense.
• 13:05
  Speaker0: And what the psalmist said here is, I set God, I listen to the wording, continually before me.
• 13:18
  Speaker0: In one sentence, I can't think of a clear way to talk about a present-centered life.
• 13:25
  Speaker0: I want the Lord. I've chosen him, but I don't want him just initially. I need him every day.
• 13:32
  Speaker0: So I'm going to set him before me. I'm going to listen to him.
• 13:37
  Speaker0: And therefore, because I have set him there, what did David's testimony become?
• 13:44
  Speaker0: He counsels me. He leads me and speaks to me in the night.
• 13:53
  Speaker0: I made a statement in a little book I wrote recently called The Presence-Centered
• 13:58
  Speaker0: Life, and that's this, that God desires a continual, daily,
• 14:05
  Speaker0: personal relationship with us, but we must cooperate. That's not going to just happen.
• 14:10
  Speaker0: The things you must do, and you must realize that his presence,
• 14:16
  Speaker0: his nearness, is our greatest need, but our presence with him is his great delight and his great desire.
• 14:27
  Speaker0: How does that happen? Well, you must find your God, settle the issue.
• 14:35
  Speaker0: Lord, you're my Lord. I don't want any other gods.
• 14:38
  Speaker0: But secondly, you must daily set the Lord before you. You must focus on your God.
• 14:47
  Speaker0: And do you know what happens for people who do that, who learn the way of a
• 14:54
  Speaker0: present-centered life?
• 14:56
  Speaker0: And there's some things we have to learn about that through the years.
• 15:01
  Speaker0: A present-centered man or woman is filled with God.
• 15:06
  Speaker0: Now listen to the last part of this incredible psalm, he says in verse 9,
• 15:14
  Speaker0: because God is at my right hand, I will not be shaken.
• 15:19
  Speaker0: So what happens to a present center man? They have stability.
• 15:22
  Speaker0: Why? Because God is with them.
• 15:26
  Speaker0: What could be more stable than having God with you, right?
• 15:30
  Speaker0: I mean, you see an old person who's not stable in their life,
• 15:35
  Speaker0: and they want somebody at their right arm that they can hold on to,
• 15:39
  Speaker0: and they feel okay. They have stability. They know where they're going.
• 15:43
  Speaker0: Or you see a little toddler who's struggling in their way, but then their mom
• 15:48
  Speaker0: or dad comes and takes her hand, and it gives them incredible stability.
• 15:53
  Speaker0: Well, this world is a shaky place to live,
• 15:58
  Speaker0: and there's a lot of fear and anxiety and worry unless you set the Lord continually
• 16:07
  Speaker0: and you have his awareness of his presence,
• 16:11
  Speaker0: the conscious awareness of his presence continually.
• 16:16
  Speaker0: Then you have stability. But then he says,
• 16:21
  Speaker0: my flesh, therefore my heart is glad and my glory rejoices and my flesh also
• 16:27
  Speaker0: will deal securely because you will not abandon my soul to shield nor will you
• 16:35
  Speaker0: show your holy one, send your holy one to decay.
• 16:39
  Speaker0: So there is not only stability, there's security.
• 16:43
  Speaker0: I know where I'm going. I know who holds me. I know who's got me.
• 16:49
  Speaker0: How do you know that, Bill? Because I'm talking to him all day long,
• 16:53
  Speaker0: because I have set the Lord continually before me.
• 16:58
  Speaker0: So you may be a person who feels very insecure.
• 17:05
  Speaker0: You feel insecure at work. You feel really shaky in your family.
• 17:12
  Speaker0: You feel insecure about the future.
• 17:15
  Speaker0: You feel insecure about just your personal life and where it's all going and where it's headed.
• 17:24
  Speaker0: Well, you can continue to walk with that kind of insecurity and suffer the results of that.
• 17:31
  Speaker0: Or you can settle the issue that the Lord is your God and you can place him continually.
• 17:40
  Speaker0: You can learn how to do this, place him every day, continually.
• 17:47
  Speaker0: And you're talking to him every day through the day.
• 17:51
  Speaker0: You're walking with him. You're communing with him and he's communing with you.
• 17:56
  Speaker0: And you'll have absolute, unbelievable security.
• 18:00
  Speaker0: And there's something else he says. Look in verse 11.
• 18:04
  Speaker0: You will make known to me the path of life.
• 18:09
  Speaker0: In other words, if I'm not aware of the Lord and I'm just doing this thing on
• 18:13
  Speaker0: my own, I have no idea about direction.
• 18:18
  Speaker0: One of the most beautiful things in the Old Testament is the story of God leading
• 18:23
  Speaker0: the children of Israel from Egypt and bondage into the promised land.
• 18:28
  Speaker0: And you remember how he did that? He said, I'm going to place during the day
• 18:33
  Speaker0: a cloud by day and at night a pillar of fire.
• 18:40
  Speaker0: And all you have to do is just follow me and I will lead you in all the right
• 18:47
  Speaker0: paths, not just for your sake, but so that my name might be seen.
• 18:53
  Speaker0: Here's what David said. The Lord is my shepherd. He leads me in all the right
• 18:57
  Speaker0: paths for his name's sake.
• 18:59
  Speaker0: So he will be rightly glorified as the great leader that he is.
• 19:06
  Speaker0: Do you feel like you're lacking direction in your life?
• 19:10
  Speaker0: That you just don't know? You're just like, man, I just don't know what to do.
• 19:14
  Speaker0: I don't know how to handle my family. I don't know how to handle my finances.
• 19:17
  Speaker0: I don't know how to handle my kids.
• 19:19
  Speaker0: I don't know. The decisions I have at work just paralyze me.
• 19:23
  Speaker0: I don't know what to do. I have no direction.
• 19:26
  Speaker0: Well, of course.
• 19:29
  Speaker0: You know why? You were never meant to do this thing on your own.
• 19:34
  Speaker0: And Jesus says, abide in me.
• 19:37
  Speaker0: Place me continually before you. Remain fixed with me. Walk with me.
• 19:45
  Speaker0: And you're going to bear fruit. I mean, great direction.
• 19:50
  Speaker0: You'll do the things that I intended for you to do. But apart from me, you can do nothing.
• 19:57
  Speaker0: And there's one other thing that he says in this passage, and it's one of the
• 20:01
  Speaker0: reasons we love this psalm.
• 20:05
  Speaker0: He said, I have placed the Lord continually before me, verse 7,
• 20:09
  Speaker0: verse 11, you will make known to me the path of life.
• 20:13
  Speaker0: In your presence is fullness of joy.
• 20:18
  Speaker0: And in your right hand, there are pleasures forevermore.
• 20:25
  Speaker0: Do you know that the Lord wants you to have pleasure in the best sense of that
• 20:32
  Speaker0: word, in the holy sense of that word.
• 20:36
  Speaker0: He is delighted when you have his kind of pleasure, that the pleasures that
• 20:42
  Speaker0: are found in his right hand.
• 20:45
  Speaker0: And he wants you to have not a little bit of joy, not some joy every once in
• 20:52
  Speaker0: a while, not joy when things are going good.
• 20:56
  Speaker0: He said, in your presence, when I'm setting the Lord continually before me,
• 21:02
  Speaker0: and I'm knowing his presence, I'm consciously aware of him, I'm talking to him throughout the day,
• 21:09
  Speaker0: in your presence is fullness of joy.
• 21:16
  Speaker0: Can I just ask you, before we pray together, do you have that?
• 21:24
  Speaker0: Do you have fullness of joy, or do you look around and you say,
• 21:27
  Speaker0: man, you know, I'm just not very happy in my life?
• 21:32
  Speaker0: Well, you know why we have so many joyless Christians?
• 21:37
  Speaker0: We have many presenceless, that's the word, Christians.
• 21:44
  Speaker0: We have so many people who are not setting the Lord. They're not focused on him.
• 21:49
  Speaker0: They're not seeking first his kingdom. They're not praying without ceasing.
• 21:54
  Speaker0: They're not communing throughout the day. And therefore, they have not set the
• 21:59
  Speaker0: Lord before them. And they're in a fog.
• 22:01
  Speaker0: They don't know direction. They're insecure.
• 22:04
  Speaker0: They're unstable. And they have no joy.
• 22:07
  Speaker0: And that's not a very pleasurable way to live.
• 22:12
  Speaker0: And can I say to you, God has more for you.
• 22:17
  Speaker0: He has more, but it's all found in his presence.
• 22:24
  Speaker0: Can I pray with you about that?
• 22:27
  Speaker0: Father, we're just so grateful.
• 22:32
  Speaker0: That this psalm promises us so much more.
• 22:38
  Speaker0: And I pray, Father, that just the brief moments that we've talked about this,
• 22:46
  Speaker0: would haunt us, these words would pursue us.
• 22:51
  Speaker0: I pray that we would evaluate our lives and see if we have found the Lord.
• 23:02
  Speaker0: If we've settled the issue that he is our God and there's no good anywhere else,
• 23:10
  Speaker0: and I'm not going to choose the gods of this world.
• 23:14
  Speaker0: And Lord, help us to learn how to be focused on you to place the Lord,
• 23:20
  Speaker0: just like my glasses on my face, to place the Lord continually before me.
• 23:28
  Speaker0: And, Lord, to be filled with you. It's a secret to joy, to life, security.
• 23:34
  Speaker0: But, Father, it's the key to the world seeing through us and our lives.
• 23:42
  Speaker0: What an incredible God you are.
• 23:46
  Speaker0: And I pray that you would take us there to become present-centered men and women
• 23:53
  Speaker0: of God. We love you, Lord.
• 23:56
  Speaker0: We thank you that there's more for us. And we pray it in your precious holy name. Amen.
• 24:03
  Speaker0: Well, we're so glad you joined us today. We just keep coming every week because there's always more.
• 24:12
  Speaker0: And our great joy and our great task is to find the more of God and share a
• 24:20
  Speaker0: little bit of that every week.
• 24:21
  Speaker0: And we're so thrilled that you're with us along the journey.
• 24:24
  Speaker0: And I pray that you'd let somebody else know about the One Cry podcast.
• 24:29
  Speaker0: Send them a note, an email, put it on social media. If this is blessing you, let it bless them too.
• 24:36
  Speaker0: Thank you so much. And we'll see you next time.