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Music.

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Lord, come send your spirit to speak to us what only you can speak, which is truth and life.

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Music.

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Come and do in us, individually and as a community, what only you can do. In Jesus' name.

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Good morning. I almost said you may be seated and it hit me you're already seated.

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So you get the regular guy you guys are having so much fun with joy well too bad.

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I'm bad i'm bad so don't leave Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve.

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Okay, well, just a quick update.

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We will, I can see there's been movement

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in the room because it's a little hotter on this side of the room.

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By next week, well, in the next, between seven and ten days,

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we'll actually have our room. So thank you very much for your faithfulness, your commitment for believing

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in what God is doing here. And, you know, it's so much fun to say, I have this week authorized my office.

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Anyway, so if you make pledges, you probably got a text message.

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So we'll keep reminding you so that we cover the deficits that we had to get

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to from elsewhere to fill it up. Thank you so much for listening.

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Showing that you believe in what God is doing here and what God is doing in

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this city through this church. It's been very encouraging for me.

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So, some of you might not know this, but this is our birthday, Mom.

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Ten years ago, yeah, ten years ago, it was June again, opening the floors for

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the first time for gatherings. I say doors, we've never actually had doors. No, anyone can walk into anywhere. anywhere.

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Don't get Carolyn. Just walk in. Hi, Carolyn.

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So, many years ago, we actually started having gatherings and the journey has

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been nothing short of beautiful.

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You know, there have been so many years of all the joy and pain.

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We've said goodbye to lovely, lovely people.

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We say hello to beautiful people.

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We've grieved certain losses and we've celebrated the things God has done.

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People of all kinds have walked through the, again, almost say door,

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we do not have a door, you know, in and out of this community.

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At some point we actually had encountered 11 different nationalities and as

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many tribes in Kenya as there are in one room. Isn't that exciting hell, right?

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You know, it was the results give to us to be part of touching the nations because

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Because if you've been here for even, just say, five years, you realize we're

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more intrinsic community. Today you meet people, the next day they've moved to a different part of this

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country or a different part of this world. And God has allowed us to be part of all those stories. And I think that's beautiful.

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And from time to time, I ask myself, is anyone's life any different from having

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been part of this church? Oh, yes. Great. Oh, okay. Thank you.

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I should have written a pause until that was part of the talk.

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I'm completely internal. I often ask myself, is anyone's life any different?

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Because it costs money, it costs time, it costs energy to do this.

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We'd rather not do this if it is not making a difference.

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So I often sit down. Sometimes I feel discouraged. I'm like,

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God, we're just another church. Other times I hear, oh yes, And I go, oh, God, thank you, because life's changing.

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I ask myself, would our city miss this church if we moved or closed our doors?

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Would our city miss this church? You know, Nakuru has so many churches,

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we don't need yet another one. So would our city miss this church if it's any to change?

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And so it reflects on my own life and the story that I've heard from this place.

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And it's been so encouraging.

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We baptize leaders of two of the most dangerous gangs in the Guru hearing district.

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That was so cool. And risky. We actually didn't do it on a Sunday.

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For the police, some of them were there and no one else could see.

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You are the one that is true. And, you know, we've been part of wonderful stories such as those.

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We have had big parties here where everybody was welcome.

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And, you know, I could see some of us going, wait, who are all those people?

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What if there's no food for me? But, you know, that was enough.

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No, we've had amazing parties of just eating together, we've seen people free

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from the demon, we've seen people get healed, and we've hosted poetry events for just art.

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I mean, we've done a lot of these stories here, and it's an opportunity to do a lot of things.

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We've raised leaders, some of whom serve here.

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Some of the people that God has allowed to go through this place,

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and not even in this I see them on Instagram like please

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just just mention us you know

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like now you're in the limelight just tell them

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that is that I know you you know you

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know we've seen businesses start for people who at some point felt hopeless

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and flourish we've also seen some things close down and it's been heartbreaking

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but the point is we have had a beautiful journey I'll tell you one story today

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I won't tell you the name because I never got the chance to ask for permission.

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And so I'll also just keep it very general. There's someone who's meeting our

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community that's really sad. But it's not because you guys have not been nice. You've all tried.

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She's moving to Nairobi. And so she showed up on Friday and I thought I was

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meeting someone for the first time. Turns out she's seen my dreadlocks.

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If you've seen my dreadlocks, you've been here for at least three years.

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She's like, no, no, I knew you when you had Fred. I was like,

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oh, I'm sorry. What's your name? But she had come to just say, hey, I'm leaving, but I don't want to leave without saying this.

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You people have been a wonderful community.

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She said to Joanne and me, you guys are doing God's work, because I came here

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broken, and I needed a place to heal.

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And you've been a safe place for for me and my community.

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And it moved me. See, as a pastor, I often don't hear great stories.

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People come to my office when things are burning.

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And so sometimes I'm leaving the office and I see a person like, oh, no, not again.

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So it's always beautiful when I hear some of those stories because they remind me why we do this.

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And we'll share a lot of similar stories, even some of brokenness,

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because this is the story God is writing.

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And it is stories such as these that are encouragement to me.

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And it's stories such as these that made me want to tell you all congratulations.

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You're doing client. I don't think I ever greeted this lady. It's you people.

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You're a lot of people, Will. You

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weren't people, Will. You journeyed with people through highs and lows.

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You've even passed, Will.

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Because I know certain fights that I know have happened. And I still see all

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of you. So congratulations to Will.

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Now, also, for the last 10 years. But I'm now inviting us to start looking at the next 10 years.

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What do we want in the next 10 years?

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What stories do we want to write? I personally want to invite you that let's

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not live a story that we can write. That's just too easy.

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If we live out a story you and I can write, that's just too easy.

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I'm not excited about the thought of that. And why don't we live on a story

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that only God can tell us? I just don't know what that would look like. I don't know what that means,

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leaving, or I don't know. I just don't know what that looks like.

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But what if we say, God, we want to live a story only you can write.

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Why don't we ask God to light the fire in our hearts again, that our hearts will not grow cold.

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It's been a beautiful 10 years, but let not

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the fire in our hearts go go so God light

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the fire in our subject light the fire in

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us again in the way we love people in the

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way we serve this city in the way we celebrate each other in the way we grieve

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our losses I want us to be marked by his presence and his love I promise you

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I hear stories from this church and I'm going wait that's here when people walk and they say,

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there's something I felt, I could tell God was in that room.

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Sorry, no room, you know, under the trees.

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Or, you know, when people say, there's something about how I felt love.

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And these are people, some of us in the leadership team have never even met.

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So it's really you people, the body of Christ, the church, that's how you're living.

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Imagine. Imagine in this city and in your families and the places you work.

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You know the usual spiel I do at the end of every Sunday morning. It's a serious thing.

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When I say going to the city, to your families and friends, to your workplaces

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and strangers on the streets. Now imagine those people turning away from their sin and beginning to follow Jesus.

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Imagine all that happening because of how you've lived. live.

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Imagine our gathered spaces just being places where the power and the presence

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of God is poured out just like we've experienced today and last Sunday and on Wednesday.

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Imagine our gathered spaces because church is not a building.

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Church is you people and when we gather together, imagine those spaces being

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filled with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit but it doesn't stop here.

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That impels us into the city. Imagine experiencing experiencing the presence

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of God more than a Sunday table.

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That's what I dream about for the next 10 years. Because that's what's going

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to change everything else. That's what's going to change how we do business.

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That's what's going to change how we are raising our kids. That's what is going

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to change the rest of life. And when Christ is lifted up, He will draw men and women to Himself.

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I want to see revival in this city, in our time of death.

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Now, a little disclaimer. We do not determine when God pours out His Spirit and power. Okay?

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We do not determine the timetables of revival.

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So I'm not saying, okay, we have three and a half years to bring down revival.

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No, we do not determine the timetables of revival. I see different meetings around town.

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Revival 2024, you know. And I just go, wow, how do they know?

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How do they know? This is the week God is sweeping through this city.

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How do you know you don't and

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here's the thing if everything

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is revival then nothing is revival we follow our meetings let's

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say we have a meeting that we every month and we call it revival if everything's

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revival then nothing's revival but sometimes god pours out his spirit and he

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moves in such power spontaneously and so much power that it changes a generation It walks a generation.

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Some of the people who are serving here are still here because they encountered

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God in a powerful way here, and it's changed them forever.

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They're not going anywhere. I remember when George started, I promised him to

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not mention his name, but, you know, I didn't speak all of January, but anyway.

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I remember when George had been serving and leading worship for a while,

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And he resigned from a job he was doing in town.

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And so, you know, someone's got to eat and pay the bills.

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And he came to me and said, I've been offered a job in Nairobi,

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but I don't want to go because I love this church. I've encountered God here.

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And I want to see more of that. I want to hear more and more people say I've

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encountered God. It's okay. They don't have to all stay here.

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That's not the point of the story. But I want to see people say hello to God

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and say here in this place.

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Now, there are certain ingredients about revival, like the common revival.

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We can't determine the time because it's all about God.

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But there are certain things that are common about revivals.

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If you've heard the story in the revivals in the church for generations,

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and all of them, there's a couple of ingredients that I want to talk about in

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the next couple of weeks. All of them have something to do with altars, important altars, they turn back to God.

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There's an entire round of our worship to God. Now, you see,

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I've just mentioned an interesting word, altars, and people who come from a

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lot of different churches say, oh, where are we going with this altar business?

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Let me just say what altars are. Altars are places set apart, which means holy.

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Altars are places set apart for worship and sacrifice.

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And usually, in the Old Testament, they would be raised.

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Why? To set them apart from everything else.

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There would be rains and then a sacrifice, an animal or harvest or incense would

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be put on the altar and it would be set on fire.

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It was believed that the aroma from the burning of the sacrifice would please God.

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In the Old Testament, altars were built to mark places where God had met his people.

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Every time God would show up, they would build an altar.

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They would build altars to mark the places where God had made his name known.

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In the other one, they were saying, this, on this place, God met us.

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On this place, on this day, on this spot, God delivered us in a mighty way.

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So they would look like normal places, but for them, it's no, no, no.

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I remember the day God delivered us, and therefore they would raise an altar.

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And that would be a place for the worship of God.

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And, you know, let's be honest, it's human behavior to mark important times and places.

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That's why we started by reminding ourselves that February, 10 years ago,

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Trinity started. Human beings are people, we're creatures who like putting mark on important things.

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So that's partly what altars were.

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That's why, you know, you celebrate your birthdays and some of you got into

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trouble on your last anniversary because you forgot that important altar.

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That's why, you know, if I created trouble for anyone by just reminding your

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spouse that it's your anniversary, I'm very sorry. You know,

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that's why people go for photo shoots when they're graduating.

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They're saying, on this day, I was conferring the power to read because I've

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not been reading all my life. Really?

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We mark significant things. And sometimes we mark places and moments where God

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met us, shared a journey, my life changed.

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Just I remember the moment I said yes to serving as lead pastor and I know how my life has.

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I remember the moment in 2015 where in the presence of God, I just encountered God so powerfully.

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And I cried for 45 minutes and I couldn't stop and I didn't know what was happening.

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But I never knew that God was birthing something in me.

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And it was a passion for the leadership of this church. Because only two years

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later, anyway, I don't know. We mark places where God has met us specially.

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Now, if you know the story of Scripture, you know that there are no altars in the Garden of Eden.

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There are no altars there. Why? Because there was such an open relationship

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between God and humanity. And so there was no need for altars.

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Altars, we see the cross over after humanity is kicked out of the Garden of

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Eden. Because what altars do is that they bridge the gap between the divine and human.

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It was a way of us saying, Lord God, we need you.

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And so his presence, the fire on the altar represented the presence of God.

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And in that way, earth and heaven would meet.

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So that's the other thing altars do. They would bridge the distance between

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God and his people. So an altar, plus a sacrifice, plus God's presence, equals worship.

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And so they would build this altar's whole. Worship, cleansing, adoration, praise.

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Any time they wanted to communicate to God any of these things,

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there would be an altar, there would be a sacrifice, and then there would be

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fire representing God's presence, and that was their worship.

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But it wasn't just God's people. All the nations around them also worshipped other gods, and they would do it on altars.

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So it wasn't just God's people. And actually, Israel's biggest problem during

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this time is that some of them would begin to worship these other gods on these other altars.

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They would still take a goat, still take a dove or whatever,

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and burn it on the altars of other gods.

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And God would say, no, you cannot do that.

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Sometimes they would leave the altar of Yahweh desolate. or sometimes they would

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even worship other gods than the authors of Yahweh.

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And this was one of the biggest problems.

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You cannot worship any other god.

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What I'm trying to draw out here is worship.

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Worship is a human thing. It wasn't just an Israelite thing.

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It was what everybody was doing. Worship is a human thing.

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Okay, all that might sound old school. And some of us really have a hard time

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with the Old Testament, so you're wondering what day did I choose to show up in church?

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All that might sound old school, but is it really old school?

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If you're African or from the East or Eastern culture or South American,

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this is not really very far from us.

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You know, sacrifices, I think, are still down to this day.

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So many politicians, by 27, they will be praying at a church on a Sunday morning

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and sacrificing somewhere on Sunday afternoon, two of all, right? It's the same stuff.

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Or if you come from the same people I come from, I can always think about my

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people because that's the culture I know. You know, you build a house, there's a sacrifice to be made.

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You turn down your house, there's a sacrifice to be made. You get mad at all these sacrifices.

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It's not necessarily old school. And if we are honest, some of us even today,

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when life hit hard, you didn't have a job for too long, you were sick for very

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long, your family from our country called you and said.

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And then you went to and there are so now there is there has to be a hen that

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is pure white that was born between,

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right it's this isn't strange why it's it's not old school but okay so maybe

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that sounds With your, you know.

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But it's happening even in church.

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I'm sure some of you have met people in the name of prayer warriors.

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That have told you now, for God to heal this disease, you must bring 10,000 souls.

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What do they say? Bring a sacrifice for God to meet you. It breaks my heart.

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I've had this conversation with a few people in this church.

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Who because self was very heavy in their life, they thought that God was not

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meeting them because they've not given certain sacrifices.

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And so they come to me and ask me, Pastor, tell me, how much money does it take?

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I'm telling you, we could have built this room very fast.

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I'm sorry. If you're here for the first time and my humor is terrible sometimes, please forgive me.

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I really don't mean that we would do that to build our union.

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And the point I'm trying to make is that worship is a human thing.

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We all worship. The question is what?

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The question is what? We all make sacrifices in worship. The question is to what?

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And not all authors are single. But some of the most important authors are not even single.

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All the places we exalt, any place you exalt what you worship and sacrifice to it is an altar.

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This is so special to us that we lay down the most valuable things in our lives.

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You see, human beings all get to worship. The question is worship.

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And the biggest altar is our heart.

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Each of our hearts has an altar. The biggest worship, the core of worship happens in our hearts.

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And there we exalt for what we truly worship. And from there,

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all forms of sacrifices come.

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You know, Israelites leaving Yahweh to worship other gods didn't start by sacrificing to other gods.

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It started with their hearts turning away from God.

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Sure we look at some of the things happening around us we go i

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would never go that far i would never desert god that

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much but it doesn't start by that step it

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starts by our hearts deserting god because the the

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biggest altar of worship is our hearts and god is after your hearts this is

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where it begins we could act all nice because you see the children of israel

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some of them even still worship at the altar of Yahweh but their hearts are

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completely turned away. Scripture says these people worship me with their lips but their hearts are turned away from me.

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Sometimes they could have all night from the outside but hearts are turned away

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from from God and soon enough so in the rest of our lives.

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Idols in our hearts, whatever we exalt in our hearts are idols.

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Whatever we exalt in our hearts are idols, and idols in our hearts take the altar of our hearts.

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We sometimes fall into the outward manifestation of righteousness.

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I could hear the whole church sing.

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You know, I know we're still moving and the screen is somewhere,

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someone, I went to the wrong side of the church and someone was telling me,

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someone, someone, you know, God, I'm the pastor on this church.

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Anyone that says, threaten me, Paul. Just a minute. But anyways.

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And it was incredible hearing voices raised up to heaven.

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And despite all our struggles with the visuals this morning. But you know what?

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Sometimes we're focused on outward manifestation of worship. We sing.

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We come to church. We give our tithes and offerings.

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Don't stop. and so on and so on. But look at what God has to say about that. This is Isaiah 11-13.

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The multitude will be satisfied. What are they to you?

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Praise the Lord. I have more than enough of the apparent offerings,

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of rams and of fattened animals.

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I have no pleasure in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats.

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When you come to appear before me, who has asked this of you?

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This trampling of my courts, so bringing meaningless offerings.

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Your innocence is detestable to me.

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Imagine God telling Trudy Vineyard, Just silence that guitar Don't do that whole

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Community worship thing I'm done Don't even show up I'm done Imagine God saying that Wait,

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what is the problem? The problem is the heart Whoever is exalted On the altar of our hearts Is who

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we truly worship And everything else is noise Everything else is noise And you see We,

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as I've said here a couple of times, have become like all we worship.

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So a couple of weeks back, right before Christmas, we were talking about the name of God.

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And I was saying that one of the things God was careful to show the Israelites

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is throw out of God's door mean well.

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They are mean. They are violent.

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They don't care about you. And guess what? As the Israelites began worship the

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other God, if you read the rest of that portion of Isaiah that I haven't read,

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They started acting the very same way these gods were acting.

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They did not care about the poor. They did not care about the orphan.

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They deserted the widow. They crushed the oppressed.

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Why would they be coming while they worship?

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Soon what you worship will begin to spill out into how you live.

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So what is it you truly worship? That's the real question.

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Sort of about how loud we sing, how much time we give.

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How it's sort of any of those

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external stuff so what we truly worship will

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begin to spill over now the reason this

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is important is because if we're going to see a move of god it will start with

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a revolution in our house it will not start in the great roof and i i pray to

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god it will be beautiful and cooler it will not so start with better sound system

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because joseph from the the worship team keeps telling you,

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we need new sound, like we have okay sound.

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You know, it does not start with all of that. We don't need to change our worship

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team. We don't need to change that.

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Stuck with a revolution in our hearts. If we want to see renewal in our own

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lives, if we want to see revival in this city, moves of God stuck with hearts turned back to God.

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One of the famous revivals happened in Scotland, in the Aberdeens, and it was so powerful.

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I told you, revivals change a whole generation.

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It's not, oh, our church had a revival. No, revivals change a whole generation.

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They impact the whole sin and so there was a

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revival in the average in scotland and some

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believers had been praying that for god to move

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and they started meeting regularly just going god we are hungry for you we are

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hungry for you and one day god came down so much power so many people are on

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the floor in worship they and some in trance overcome in chances overcome by

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the power and the presence of God. And this kind of thing continued.

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They would start a meeting and, you know, let's have a two-hour prayer meeting

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and it would go on for days. No one wants to leave. Not because the pastor is funny.

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It's just because the presence of God is there and no one is leaving.

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In fact, in some of those meetings, the pastor would leave. I've got to go.

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But people would stay on the power of the presence of God for days. days.

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One interesting thing happened. One of the pastors was called to a police station

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because hundreds of young people who had gone out the night before had turned

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out at the police station to confess and repent so that they get right with God.

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The police station didn't show up there. But imagine that.

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A move of God so powerful that hundreds of people show up at a police station

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to say, I want to get right with God.

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Yes. But this is how it started.

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As they were longing to see and breaking out of God's power.

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One deacon in one of the prayer meetings, one deacon came and read Psalm 34.

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Who may ascend the hill of the Lord? Or who may stand in His holy place?

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He was clean hands and a pure heart, who has not lifted their soul to an idol.

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And then he said it is complete nonsense he didn't use the word nonsense it

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is complete nonsense for us to pray for God to move when our hearts are not

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pure and our hands are not clean,

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and so he lifted his hand and started praying God are my hands clean is my heart

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pure and even before he could finish the prayer he was on the ground and the

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rules filled the power of God and And everybody started bowing down in worship.

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When we want to see a powerful move of God in our midst, it starts in our hearts, turning back to Him.

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Pulling down every idol in our hearts.

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If you want to see your family turn around, if we want to see this city taken by the power of God.

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So that some of the things that are happening in our hospitals stop to happen.

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We've got to start with turning our hearts to God.

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Lord, give us clean hands and give us a pure heart. Okay, what is the heart?

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Millennials have this running joke, you know, we're the heartbreak generation.

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Everybody is getting their heart broken, everybody gets a piece.

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And so we're constantly reminded the heart is for perfect blood and not for

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Oh, I can't think of anything there.

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But anyway, so not the muscular organ. When we talk about that,

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when you say, oh, my heart is full, or I felt in my heart, or when we read in

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scripture about the heart, what do we mean?

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The heart is the center of all your being.

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I'm talking about the center of all your being.

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The core of where all things come from. The seat of all your emotions and desires.

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It's the core of who you truly are. The heart is where all things come from.

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Once it goes wrong in the heart, it's really all. Think about it this way.

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If you've ever loved someone. All your heart there's nothing they could really do that is

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wrong you know what i mean i'm sure they would do her own

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thing still it's just

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to talk to you about it okay i mean they

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will always look like angels to you right there's a there's a sketch i saw a

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couple maybe yesterday this this this lady is is with her partner who gets a

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phone call and runs out of the house very very very far to pick that call out. Well, I don't know why.

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And then he came back and she asked, why did you make it from outside?

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Oh, you see, phones have radioactive waves and they cause cancer.

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And I know you don't have medical insurance.

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So I just ran away to protect you. And this lady goes, oh, thank you so much.

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The hard ones are the hard ones, right?

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But also when you dislike someone from the heart, There's nothing I can do that is right.

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They would cook the best ugali in Kenya and it's still for you.

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That's partly why our politics are broken because no one wants to admit when

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the other person is right because it's from the heart, that person.

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Right? Everything starts from the heart. There's a proverb that says,

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Watch over your heart with all diligence, from it flow all strange supply.

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Everything else we see on the outside is an overthrow of what's really inside

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us, including the hypocrisy we sometimes carry with us.

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The duplicity of being able to live one life here and another one there doesn't

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bother us. It's starting from mid here.

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The heart is an altar where we worship whatever is exalted there.

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And you want to know what you truly worship?

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Forget how loud you sang on the day. Forget how long your prayers can be.

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You want to know what you truly worship? Look at your budget and your skeptics.

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Where are you spending your most valuable resources?

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How have you organized your life?

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You see, sadly, some of us claim to worship God, and we hope we do,

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probably, but we are actually worshiping idols.

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We've organized our lives around everything else but God.

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So how you organize your life Look at

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just how you spend your day Look at just how you spend your

35:34

money It'll tell you what a truly Truly Porsche Dallas Willard said A great

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part of the disaster Of the contemporary life Lies in the fact that it is Organized

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around our human feelings And not around God It doesn't make me happy,

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Yeah, well You know, that famous line Oh, it doesn't make me happy I just want to be happy.

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It tells you what we're looking for. It tells you what we truly worship.

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It tells you how we are organizing our lives.

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And the thing is, what you worship will swallow you whole.

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So either your life streams from God our Father or something else.

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What is it that is truly exalted in your body?

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Do you want to know if you're worshiping an idol? Do you want to know if you've

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idolized something to a place where you're worshiping it?

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If you sin when you do not get it, or you sin in order to obtain it, it's become an idol.

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And sometimes, though, I'm just struggling with this thing. No,

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if it's been there for three years, it's no longer a struggle.

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That's a strong one. I mean. No, and I didn't come up with that. I showed, yeah. But yeah,

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you know, like seriously. Sorry, Augustine.

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It's now a struggle. So what are

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some of the things that our hearts should watch out for? Wicked hearts.

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Wicked hearts. Let's just search our hearts. And sometimes we forget that we

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could have wicked hearts. Jeremiah 17, 9-10. The heart is deceitful about all things, and beyond all. Who can understand it?

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I, the Lord, search the heart and examine the mind to reward each person according

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to their conduct, according to what their deeds deserve." We have to admit that there is a part of us,

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which a couple of months ago I called it the flesh,

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there's a part of us that is turned away from God.

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Let's stop pretending that everything is okay.

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Have you ever, you know, thought you really respected someone,

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they were doing great and then you heard of something about them and you're

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like how could they what do you mean how could they it's a human being with

37:52

a wicked heart of course they could they.

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Look at how many things we've tried to fix in the world with human laws and

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institutions so after world war after some world wars we set up all these institutions

38:08

to keep us from war Do you know how many wars are going on in the world today?

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How can they not stand? Because the human heart is wicked.

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And we cannot create enough laws to keep the human heart from being wicked. It is beyond the door.

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A couple of days ago, Kenya was coming to grips with the reality of femicide

38:31

in our country. And it is bad news.

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And there are marches across the country. Yet that's part, that's only one part of the conversation.

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Let's not march wickedness out of people's hearts. Let's really ask ourselves what is truly wrong.

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And the answer is the heart of man and women is continually wicked and beyond cure.

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I don't want anyone thinking, oh, we're going scot-free.

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And only God can fix it. Any cosmetic fix won't work.

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Laws and barriers, all these things. Any cosmetic fix won't work.

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Only God can really examine the

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heart and we we remain with wicked

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hearts every time we reject God it's a

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fool who says in his heart there's no

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God I look at a lot of the things that are happening in

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our news and I just go of course the only solution is

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God but it might be very unpopular to be

39:35

on a tv channel and say that but I truly believe

39:38

that of course the only solution another problem

39:42

divided hearts some of you one

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foot in one foot out some of

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you worship God and other things and scripture

39:51

says how long will you still balance between two opinions make up your mind

39:56

sometimes it's evident it's evident that that that we want to be with God But

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we also love the world and the things of the world, and we just don't want to let go of them yet.

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And so we're keeping some of it. A little bit on the side, a little bit on the side.

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We're one foot in, one foot out. And here's the thing.

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What Scripture says is, friendship with the world is enmity with God.

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You can't do it. You cannot have a divided heart. This is how Jesus said it in Revelation 16. 16.

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Jesus spoke about this, so this is what Jesus said.

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So I will spit you out of my mouth because you're only warm.

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Sorry, you're only warm. Not hot, not cold.

40:47

Like it's even better, just pick the other side if you want to. But you can't do both.

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Jesus says, I'll spit you out of my mouth. I think the oddest thing to drink

40:57

is warm water. Maybe just for me.

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The third thing, unbelieving hearts. These are hearts that have been turned

41:05

away from God because of an issue in life.

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We let something come between us and God, bitterness, pain, anger,

41:14

new theology, or new ideology.

41:17

We just go, ah, and we slowly begin to turn our hearts away from God. We start unbelieving.

41:25

God isn't real. Maybe God doesn't love you. Maybe God isn't really merciful.

41:31

Maybe God let unbelief sink in and sink its cause because you attended this

41:39

training and they said these things about science. You're like,

41:42

oh, maybe God isn't real. And you listen to this podcast and I say that because I remember a time I was

41:48

listening to this podcast and I was digging deep into the Bible and I almost lost my faith.

41:53

Was like whoa what am i believing sometimes we

41:56

let the issues of life eclipse god's goodness

42:00

god's kindness and we start living in

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unbelief four hardened hearts when you know the truth and you just don't care

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have you ever tried having a conversation with someone who who can see the truth

42:14

and they don't want to the conversation can't go anywhere you're like no but

42:18

this this This shouldn't be here. I didn't know. Oh, no, it could have been. No, the conversation can't go anywhere.

42:25

When someone knows the truth and you can tell the moment, they knew the truth.

42:30

I remember having an email exchange when I was younger. I'm still fighting through it.

42:35

I was a keyboard warrior. I preferred writing emails and making phone calls,

42:39

especially when they defied. So there was a leadership brawl with some friends.

42:43

And I tried to explain to them how things were heading. And I remember just

42:47

going, at this point, you also know that you should do whatever you want.

42:51

Because it doesn't go anywhere when someone, and I may have been wrong, okay?

42:57

It doesn't go anywhere when someone knows the truth. And some of us,

43:00

God is already pointing out what needs to go.

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And you know it needs to go, but you're pretending you don't know it needs to

43:07

go. You just harden your heart. So today, if you hear God's word, don't harden your heart.

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So the real question I'm asking is, what is the state of our hearts?

43:18

We'll get everything other people see. What is the true state of our hearts?

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And we look at Bible stories and go, oh, I would never, I would never.

43:26

We look at them sacrificing goats and some of them their children.

43:29

And I would never take my child and sacrifice him or her to anything.

43:37

Yet we do it all the time. Families have been broken. Marriages lost.

43:41

Kids abandoned. abandoned because we preferred something else,

43:46

we preferred someone else. It tells you what you're worshipping.

43:51

So what's really in your heart? Where are you spending your biggest resources?

43:56

Some of the idols of our time, as I'm slowly coming to an end, don't.

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Sex, fame, power, acknowledgement and recognition, acceptance and approval, politics, ambition.

44:11

There are just these different things and we will sell everything we are.

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Well, bring in some good news. Hebrews 10, 16 to 18.

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This is the covenant I will make with them. After that time,

44:25

says the Lord, I will put my nose in their hearts and I will write them on their minds. that he has.

44:31

Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more.

44:35

And where these have been forgiven, sacrifice for sin is no longer necessary.

44:39

In Jesus, God fulfilled his promise.

44:43

And Jesus made a sacrifice that's once and for all. And so we don't need to

44:48

slaughter any goats for cleansing. We don't need to bring in this. We don't need to bring all that in order to be forgiven.

44:56

We are already forgiven. We don't need to beg and twist ourselves in different

45:04

ways for God's presence to be given to us. He's always with us.

45:08

So God's presence is with us, and our forgiveness is guaranteed.

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Now, what I want us to remember is sacrifice is a way of life.

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It's no longer goats and sheep and all that stuff, but sacrifice is a way of life.

45:24

You sacrifice something every day. Hey, so I want you to remember this.

45:29

Your heart's desire plus the sacrifice you make for it is worship.

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So are we going to start desiring God and make sacrifices for that desire?

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Because that is our worship. Oh, this way.

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Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, I urge you, Trinity Vineyard,

45:47

in view of God's mercy, to follow your God as living sacrifices,

45:52

holy and pleasing to God. This is your true and proper worship.

45:57

Sideroids are still a way of life. Are to God? Will you organize your life around God?

46:05

And this is not about moralism. This is not about behaving like this, behaving like that.

46:10

No, it's in view of God's mercy.

46:13

God is already merciful and he has already spoken forgiveness over you.

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And so what else do you have to lose? You can just show up at his throne of grace to receive help. That's the difference.

46:26

In view of God's mercy. That's the difference. There's a guy in the Bible called

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David, one of Israel's greatest kings.

46:33

Jesus is called the son of David. Jesus is proudly associated with David in heaven and on earth.

46:42

But this guy was a horny one. The man who made the robbery, tried to power it

46:47

out, and then murdered the husband of this woman.

46:50

You know, David would not survive in the Me Too movement.

46:54

But they don't know so much than we saw in the court but for us let's be honest

47:00

about what the Bible is honest about well let's be honest about everybody that's a real anyway and then,

47:07

he at some point he got so proud he nominated his fighting men to just say look at what an army I have,

47:15

here's what is said of him this

47:17

is a man after God's own heart what's the point What is happening here?

47:24

David kept bringing his heart back to God in repentance.

47:28

This is the first place where we turn the altars of our hearts and our lives back to God.

47:35

Retentance. It wasn't that he was perfect.

47:38

It wasn't that he was morally great.

47:43

We tell their kids i know actually we tell our kids

47:46

be like david but we don't tell them the old story right

47:49

then how do they try we say be like david exception

47:52

right but david kept bringing

47:55

his heart back to god and repentance one of the

47:58

one of his biggest failures this is what he wrote a soul

48:01

as he fasted and prayed for mercy he

48:04

said creating me a pure heart oh god and renew

48:08

a steadfast spirit within me do not

48:11

cast me from your presence don't

48:14

take your holy spirit from me restore the joy of your salvation and grant me

48:19

a willing spirit to sustain david knew he wouldn't do it and so he constantly

48:25

repented constantly brought back his his heart to god constantly constantly confess his sin.

48:31

It starts with acknowledging our need for God and turning back to Him.

48:38

Revival always starts with repentance. Ordinary style.

48:47

It's turning the band back on stage. stage. All revival.

48:53

All revival and the renewal of your own life starts with repentance.

49:02

And it's a problem when we pretend and hide sin in our heart because it has a way of eating us out.

49:09

But when we confess, God has a way of healing us out.

49:14

And so how to turn the others of our

49:17

hearts around is one repentance and confession god

49:21

i need you it's not right and then

49:25

two we start setting our lives apart keep your

49:28

heart tender god keep your heart tender to god and then the three make a sacrifice

49:34

but i don't mean order your life order all your life through round off the fellowship

49:42

our prayer teams could also come i want to read this over you,

49:48

someone 39. Music.

49:52

Now bless and resist search me god and know my heart test me and know my anxious thoughts,

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and Lord if there is anything offensive in me,

50:12

lead me in your.

50:16

Music.