Welcome to the Illuminate Church podcast.
We hope today's message is encouraging to you.
Well, last week we started this series called Abandoned, knowing
that the life that we dream of, which is the fullness, the
abundant life that Jesus promises us, is found when we
abandoned the life of the world. And the world comes with it.
It's deceit, it's brokenness, it's unsatisfying pursuits, all
of that that the devil's trying to give us in the world.
We leave it behind. And in so doing, this is the
teaching from last week. We are made well as we come and
worship King Jesus. We are whole.
We are set free from the power and the penalty of the sin and
walking in power, walking in peace, leaving.
This is the the vision of the year, ejecting our worldly
citizenship and embodying our heavenly citizenship.
Amen. The shirt says that you say,
Amen. So the idea of abandoned, like,
OK, I want to abandon my life. I don't know how to do that the
way that you do. That is what we're teaching in
this series. It looks like worship because it
is worship. When we worship, this is from
last week, we step off the throne of our lives and allow
Jesus his rightful place on the throne of our lives, seated at
the center of who we are. Amen.
That's the real result of real authentic worship, Jesus on the
throne of your life. Now they don't just ask you
this. Who do you want on the throne of
your life? Another way to say it is who do
you want as the king over every situation that you're going
through in your life? You have options.
Let's just talk about two. The first option is me.
Do you want? Not me, not Tim Inger, but you
as the throne seated 1 seated on the throne of your life.
Because if you're there on the throne of your life, if I'm on
the throne of my life, that means I have limited capacity,
limited ability, limited power, limited strength, limited
wisdom, limited foresight, limited, limited, limited
sporadically faithful, occasionally obediently.
Good. You hear these words, that's
what I get if I'm on the throne of my life.
But when I worship and Jesus is seated on the throne of my life,
Psalm 22, verse 3, He is enthroned.
He is seated on the throne of the praises of his people.
When I worship and Jesus comes up, what I get is that eternal
nature of God, the faithful through all generations, kind of
God, the all knowing, all powerful King of kings who
looked at him and he looked right down the gun of sin and
death, being forsaken by his Father.
And he went anyway and he defeated sin and death.
And if he's defeated sin and death and he sits on the throne
of your life, imagine what he could do in your life.
That same power. Amen.
So As for me and my house, and I
pray for you and your house. We choose Jesus to be king.
And the way that we do that is by worship, by worshiping.
So what is worship? Is it singing?
No. Well, yes, but not entirely.
You're going to hear that many times in the series.
But here's the concept that we introduced last week.
It's not the definition of worship.
It's just how worship works. Here it is.
Worship is when God acts and humanity responds.
It's a two-part process. God acts, humanity responds.
Today's message is about the first part of this two-part
process. God acts.
I say God. You say Acts, God, God, God, I
love you. My wife Christine and I, we
started dating knowing each other and the end of 1994, back
in the 1900s. And in 1995, we really began a
relationship. And near the beginning of our
relationship, I was the student director of the Wesley
Foundation, which is the United Methodist Expression at the
University of Florida. And I decided as the director,
we're going to go on a ski trip to West Virginia, Mountain Mama,
right? And we rented a bunch of cars.
We get into cars and we start going up to West Virginia.
There's like 10 cars, like 30-40 people.
I don't really remember. And up we go.
Christine and I are on the trip, obviously, and we stopped in
Atlanta to spend the first night because we don't want to make
the trek. And one long trek.
And we stayed at a church on the floor.
And then the next morning we got up and did some ministry with
kids into church. It's kind of the exchange.
We're going to stay in your place.
We'll do some ministry, then we'll be on our way that
morning. Well, the ministry with the kids
is like on the basketball court and we're running around with
the kids and we're playing with the kids and I'm just being who
God created me to be. I'm having so much fun with
these kids, trying to show them the love of Jesus, helping to
make baskets and including them. And this guy's left out and
they'll come over here. You're with us and be a part.
I'm just doing that, doing what I do.
We end and I walk over and Christine's over here.
She's like, can we, can we go talk somewhere?
I'm like you. So we go outside the church.
I still can visualize it, white roof of this porch and this
concrete steps that go down. And we're standing on the porch
of the sanctuary. And she says, hey, I was just
watching you. Like we barely been started
dating. I was just watching you and the
way that you treated and all this stuff.
She said a bunch of nice stuff and then she said something we
had not said yet. She said, I just want you to
know I love you, OK? Now the men get to do awe
because all of her was women. For the rest of our
relationship, it's on the record.
She said it first and it was so life giving to me.
Like, yeah, woo made it. It filled me with something,
like she saw something in me and she said she loves me first.
What I hope that you leave here knowing today is that God's been
over here. He's been watching you and he
just wants to pull you aside. Say, can I talk to you a second?
Say, hey, I've been watching you and I want you to know I love
you. Every bit of our existence with
Almighty God, anything that has flowed down from the throne to
us, that is precious and powerful, our salvation, our
endurance in the cross, our future promises.
All of the glory of this begins first with God saying to you, I
love you. I love you.
We talked about the scripture last week.
We might talk about it every every day, every Sunday.
First John chapter 419 says that we love and it doesn't even say
we love God just as we love. So I love you, I hope you love
me. We love our family members, we
love our friends, we love God. All love proceeds from this one
first initiating act because he first loves us.
He first love you. And he doesn't just say I love
you, he shows I love you. Big difference, right?
Yep, prove it. Romans chapter 5 verse 8
scripture that'll make you stand and worship and fall in your
face and worship. Romans chapter 5 verse 8.
You won't see it on the screen, so just hear it in your heart.
It says God demonstrated his love to us.
Didn't just say his love, He demonstrates his love to us in
this while we were yet sinners, enemies of the cross running
from him, while we were yet sinners.
Christ died for us. We all take your hand.
Just take it out like this. Put it right here.
Repeat after me. Christ died for me.
He loves me. It could be 999 people in the
room that aren't feeling this, but somebody in here today.
Maybe it's all of us. You need to know this and feel
this, and I pray that you do by the time you leave here.
Amen. Now, when we receive this love
of God, God acts, humanity responds.
How do we respond? Really?
This is next week's message, but I just want to pop in a little
bit here because it's germane to our conversation.
How should we respond? Do we know how to respond?
And I'm going to say I think we do.
I know we do. Let me prove it to you.
And maybe I'm overstating it a little bit, so just follow along
nicely. I don't know if you've ever had
kids or been around somebody who's had kids, but there's a
moment when a teeny little baby begins to crawl.
Then they begin to do that thing where they're holding on to
everything but but standing. And then eventually they do
this, right? And then they do this and
everybody in the room does this. Isn't it crazy?
Like a baby takes its first steps.
You're like, you can walk. We recently unearthed video and
found somebody loaned us a VCRI still have it anyway.
And we put in the video and Owens taking his first steps and
we're in the room. We're going nuts.
Like, yeah, he can walk. He's alive.
I don't know if you've ever been to a wedding.
I've been to a few, and there's that moment at the end of the
wedding where I'm standing there, got the best seat in the
house, and I say, dude, husband, you may now kiss your wife, your
bride. And I step over here so I'm not
in the pictures and ruin it. And then they go smoochy,
smoochy, smoochy. And everybody at the wedding
goes like this. Yeah, when you win the lottery,
you go like this. Are y'all playing the Lotto?
He walked right into that one. OK.
The point is, nobody in any of the situations had to say, I
think you should respond because something great has happened.
You already saw something great happened, and so you just
responded. It comes out of you naturally.
Amen. Can I keep overstating this?
My son Owen is down here. Pastors, kids, they always get
talked about. I apologize, but this is so
profoundly beautiful to me. When he was 18, he was
graduating high school. It was 2020.
Does anyone remember anything that was going on?
And so the circumstances of the world stole so much from that
generation. We went to his high school
graduation. You remember yours.
Thousands of people, tons of people, all in the robes and
whatever his graduation was at Celebration High School
auditorium, 648 seats, 0 people in them, four of us, family
members down front, Christine, me, Eli, Audrey.
On the platform was the president, the principal
standing here. It's a table full of diplomas
with nothing in them, and you're supposed to walk up and take an
empty one. And then he stood over here,
principals over there. Happy graduation, this milestone
moment for every kid. And that's what they got.
And then we walked out and it was over.
It was maybe 30 seconds for you that have been to graduations
like that sounds good. 17 hours later, their senior prom happens
at Epcot. That's a pretty special place to
have a senior prom cancelled. Another big milestone moment.
You're like, this is going to be great.
And everyone's always talking about their senior prom and
their senior graduation. Gone, gone, gone.
Right in the middle of both of these is his 18th birthday.
I'm like 3 major celebrations in a person's life.
And now he's handling it like a trooper.
Like he's just, it's all right. I mean, it stinks, but inside of
the dad you wrecked for your son.
And so it was his 18 birthdays coming around.
I said I'm doing something, and I called up Rob Allen, who's
over here in the fedora, Yo. I said, hey, you seen these
birthday parades that are going around?
I want to do one for Owen. Can we organize something?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so it's his birthday.
We're inside. And all of a sudden, you hear
this, all this music starting to happen.
And like, I wonder what's going on outside.
So we go outside and stood on our street and there's like a
bend in the road so you can't see anything.
And all of a sudden, the first car comes around, it's the white
Jeep. And there's lights and music and
people hanging off the Jeep. And they come passing by.
And for the next 20 or 30 minutes, cars kept coming.
People kept coming. And they were throwing things at
Owen. Lots of things.
Candy, money, water balloons, eggs, flour.
Group of his high school buddies brought baked beans in those
giant cans like this big and dumped it on them.
It went on and on. Our Rd. was destroyed.
The Murphy's our next door neighbors.
You helped clean up that mess. I remember I stood there that
whole time. Really not the whole time.
At first you like this is amazing, but like halfway
through you just as a dad. I'm looking at my son thinking I
hope he's receiving into his spirit how much love these
people have for him because of who he is.
They are here and I didn't tell him what to do.
They're responding naturally because of who he is.
And car after car singing sign shouting happy birthday.
I heard happy birthday like 6,000,000 times, right?
All of this stuff lavished upon him and I'm just hoping he's
receiving the love because of who he is.
And again, we'd have to tell anybody what to do.
It just happened naturally. Am I overstating this point?
You can say yes. So from all that, let me ask
this question. In general in the American
church, are we less responsive as people to God because we
don't know how to respond? And I would tell you the answer
is no hogwash in every situation I've just shown you, and we
could do thousands more. We know how to respond to
something that is happening that is great.
And we know how to respond to somebody who we know that we
love. So we already know how to
respond. So why aren't we more responsive
to the Lord? I'll tell you this, write it
down. Responding properly is rooted in
remembering properly the person and the acts and the love, the
magnitude and the majesty and the glory of God.
Simply put, we have not responded well because we have
not done well to remember the acts of God.
God acts. Humanity responds.
We don't respond properly because we've forgotten how God
has acted. Are you with me?
We've deluded the distinct depth of His love.
For if we together could fathom, if we could just experience the
fullness of His love, we would just naturally respond.
We do that everywhere else. So what should our response be?
That's next week. Please come back.
But for this week, I simply want to remind you how God acts, how
perfect His love is. Because I think we've forgotten.
At least I have forgotten from time to time.
To show you how God acts. What we're going to do here
today is not something we do all the time, but there's a teaching
that I have seen that wrecked me in all the right ways.
And instead of giving it to you myself, I'd rather the person
who gave it so perfectly well to give it to you.
And so some of you have met this guy before via video.
I've met him in person, but it's just briefly.
It's not like we're buddies or anything.
And this message is profoundly speaking to us how much God
loves us. This is the way that God acts.
He loved us first. What does that look like?
And you need to be reminded today of how much he's
absolutely in love with you. Pastor Preston is from
Scottsdale, AZ's got a church there called The Pillar.
This is about 10 or 12 minutes long.
And I pray that you would open your hearts to receive the love
of the Lord from this video. Would you please welcome as if
you were here, Pastor Preston? God's favorite place to be is
wherever you are. God's favorite place to be is
wherever you are. Now, there's several ways that
we can know this in Scripture, so there are 4 sub points to
point #1 make sure you write these down.
Here's the first. God made it abundantly clear in
the garden. God made it clear that His
favorite place to be. Think about this, the God of the
universe has a favorite place to be.
That favorite place to be is wherever you are.
He proved that in the garden. I'm not going to read you
Genesis chapter 3, but think about this.
What was the first question God asks man?
We act as though the first question God asks man is what
did you do? That's actually question number
four. The first question God asks man
after the fall, after sin. God says, where are you?
Think about this for a minute. The God who is everywhere and
knows everything asks A locational question.
There's no way. Think about it.
God knew where they were because he knows everything, and he was
where they were because he's everywhere.
This wasn't a locational question, it was a relational
question. Think about the implication
here. God saying, where are you?
I just want to be with you right now.
We live our lives as though the question God always asks us is
what have you done? Preston?
That was question 4. Question one was where are you?
And think about this. Think about how important God's
presence and your presence to him is.
He says, hey, if they eat from the other tree in this garden,
they'll be separated from me forever.
I cannot have that. I cannot stand for that.
God banished them from the garden simply so he could bring
them back. In the grand scheme of things,
one of the things we talk about when we talk about leading
people to Christ, who sometimes if we're not careful, it's
salvation. It's all about, hey, we don't
want you to go to hell. Salvation becomes a get out of
hell, not free card, but nearly. I want you to remember this.
Jesus didn't die to get you out of hell.
Jesus died so you could hold his Father's hand for eternity.
This was the why. Listen, it, what scares me about
hell is not the heat of hell. It's the ice cold absence of
God's presence forever. Here's the second thing that
that really helps us understand how serious God is about being
in our presence. Some point #2 He obsessively
chases you everywhere you go. This is really good news.
The God of the universe chases you wherever you go.
I'm going to say it another way. There's never been a room that
you've walked into where God wasn't already waiting for your
arrival. I'm going to show it to you in
Scripture, Psalm 139. You can turn there, but what I'd
really like, I'm going to read you 12 verses of Psalm 139.
And I'd actually prefer that as I read these verses, you close
your eyes and you just let the word of God wash over you.
And I want you to hear how your God feels about being in your
presence. Psalm 139, starting in verse
one. And if you want to just close
your eyes and just let Scripture wash over you, David says, oh
Lord, you've examined my heart and you know everything about
me. You know when I sit down, you
know when I stand up, you know my thoughts even when I'm far
away. You see me when I travel, you
see me when I rest at home. God, you know everything I do.
Question, does God know everything you do?
Because he knows everything about everything.
I don't think that's his why God knows everything you do because
He never stops watching you, no matter what you're doing. 1st 4
God, you know what I'm going to say even before I say it.
You go before me and you follow me.
You place your hand of blessing upon my head.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too great for me to even
try and comprehend. I can never escape from your
spirit. I can never get away from your
presence. If I go up to heaven, you are
there. If I go down to the grave, you
are there. If I ride the wings of the
morning, if I dwell by the farthest oceans, even there your
hand will guide me and your strength will support me.
Watch this next part. It's so romantic.
I could even ask the darkness to hide me and the light around me
to become nine the God. Even in darkness, I cannot hide
from you. OK.
I want you to open your eyes. I want you to hear this.
Months ago, I was sitting in a meeting here in Dallas.
I live in Scottsdale, but I was in an important meeting here in
Dallas. And while I was sitting in the
meeting, my son was playing in a baseball game, one of his
favorite things to do. And I have this app that lets me
follow the game pitch by pitch. And so here I am sitting in this
important meeting, trying to act like I'm paying attention.
But the whole time I'm watching pitch by pitch of my son's game,
and everyone else is talking, and I'm not really talking.
And I just felt the word say something really sweet, felt him
say, Preston, you've never asked me a question about my
omnipresence. So what?
What question do you want me to ask you?
He said, You've never asked me my why, why I'm omnipresent.
I said, OK, why are you everywhere?
He said. What's that feeling in the
bottom of your chest as you sit in this room, in this meeting,
absent from your son's skin? And I said I'm bombed,
disappointed, not miserable, but it's a miserable feeling, he
said, pressing. Let me explain my why.
Here's why I'm everywhere because I'm a daddy and I'm not
going to miss one pitch of any of my Children's Games.
I am everywhere because I refuse to miss your warmups.
I get to the gym before anybody else comes to watch the game
because I just want to see how you walk into the room.
I was trying not to lose it in the middle of the meeting, but
it was so sweet. Did you know God isn't just
everywhere because He's everywhere?
He's everywhere because of you. He obsessively chases you
everywhere you go. Here's the third thing that we
see in Scripture that helps us to know God is serious about
being in our presence #3 God takes the graveyard shift while
you sleep. God takes the graveyard shift
while you sleep years ago. We have three children.
Our oldest is our only daughter, Riley, and she's 17.
And probably sometime when she was around 3, I used to go into
a room in the mornings before I went to the office and I would
just stare at her. I know it sounds a little bit
weird, but that this is what I would do.
And one morning I remember going into a room before I was going
to work and I was just undone. And I remember saying to the
Lord God, out of all the daddies in the history of the world, I
can't believe that you let me be hers.
I just started going on and on to the Lord about everything I
love about my daughter. I'll never forget that morning I
felt the Lord say, Son, do you know this is what I do over your
bed every single morning of your life?
And I'm lost. And he sends me to Psalm 139 and
he backs it up with his word like only he can do.
Psalm 139, verse 17, David says, how precious are your thoughts
about me? Oh God, they can't even be
numbered. I can't even count all the
thoughts you have about me. They outnumber the grains of
sand. Watch this next part, David
says. And when I wake up, there you
are, still with me, standing over me.
This is one of my favorite one liners of our time together.
Man gazes at God's sunsets. Have you ever wondered what God
gazes at? God gazes at man's face.
Can you even wrap your mind around the fact that your God
sits next to your bed every night?
He just looks at you like this. Look at her, she looks just like
me. Look at him all night.
The God of the universe stares at you while you peacefully
sleep. Here's the fourth thing that we
see in scripture that really lets us know got a serious about
being in our presence. He takes his alone time with you
very seriously. God takes his alone time with
you seriously. Now I know that as followers of
Jesus Christ, we are supposed to be very serious about our alone
time with God, but I don't think we understand just how serious
He is about being alone with us. Years ago I was going into my
office 1 morning at the house. That's where I have my long time
with the Lord, and I went to sit in my chair.
Or I always pray and I want to turn on my worship music the way
I typically do. And as I'm starting to have my
time with the Lord, I just felt the Lord say, Preston, what is
the last thing you hear your wife say for the two of you?
Go into experience the most intimate physical act I've given
the two of you to experience on the earth.
I'm going to test some of your maturity with this illustration.
I get it, But hang with me because what I'm talking about
and what we're talking about is not a physical thing.
It's an intimate thing. So the word say, what's the last
thing you hear Holly say before the two of you go to experience
the most intimate physical act I've given you to experience?
And I was kind of being an honoree.
Sometimes I'm like that in my time with the Lord.
And I said, well, if you're being literal, typically the
last thing she says is, hey, babe, can you shut the door and
lock it? Because back then, I mean, we
had young kids. And those of you who are
parents, you know that when you have kids, especially when
they're young, they think every square inch of your house is
theirs, including your bedroom. So we were, you know, accustomed
to shutting the door and locking in.
And while I was sitting there in my office in my chair, starting
my quiet time with the Lord, I felt like he said, grab your
Bible and go to Matthew chapter 6.
I want to show you something. So go to Matthew 6.
I want to read to you what Jesus says as he's teaching us on
prayer. Jesus says, but you when you
pray, go into your room and when you've shut the door, some
translations say, and shut the door and pray to your Father who
was in the secret place. As I was sitting there in the
chair, felt the Lord say, Preston, I want you to know
something I've never told you before.
The last thing you will hear me say every time you come into
this room to be alone with me, say, can you shut the door real
quick? He said, why does Holly ask you
to shut the door before I get an answer?
He kind of romantically answered the question.
He said, Preston, what she's communicating to you is what's
about to happen on that side of the door is so special and so
intimate and so raw that not even your own flesh and blood
can get in on this. I want you to know how seriously
I take our time together. I ask you to shut the door
because what's about to happen on this side of the door is so
special and so intimate and so vulnerable and so raw that I
don't even want your flesh and blood getting in on this moment
that I have with you. You could boil this entire
message down to this one line. We need to be as serious about
being in God's presence as He is about being in our presence.
But I think one of the reasons we're not as serious about being
in His presence is we just don't understand how serious He is
about being in our presence. So this morning, let's shut the
door right here, right now. Before we go anywhere else and
run on to what's next, we need to shut the door to some fears
and worries. Shut the door on some diagnosis,
shut the door on a relational issue, shut the door and what's
happening at work, Shut the door and what I got to get ready for
this kids to go back to school tomorrow.
Everything that could race around in your soul and your
spirit and say I'm not giving you my attention.
I'm going to shut the door and be present with the God who's
every moment is desiring to be present with you for you to walk
in the room. Shut the door, say hey Dad, and
to hear your father say I love you.
And maybe you don't hear that enough here on in humans, flesh
and blood bodies, but certainly you can hear it from your
heavenly Father here. And now today I'm going to pray,
and as I do, same as last week, same as next week, I'm going to
ask you to get yourself in a position, a posture where you
feel like the door is shut and it's just you and the Lord.
I know you're here with other people.
It's not rude right now to just be here by yourself and just
focus on your heavenly Father. If you need to come to the
altar, be on your knees, be on your face, stand, sit, whatever
it is that you want to do. Eyes open, eyes closed to be in
His presence. Then as I pray, as soon as I
start praying, you start moving. Amen.
Let's pray. Father, this is your space, your
house. And as we come in your house,
you say, hey, will you close the door behind you?
I have something I want to tell you.
I've been watching you and I love you.
I've always loved you, never stop loving you.
I never stopped thinking about you and Lord, we receive.
We receive your love despite our failures, our flaws, our
filters, even we close the door on it all and allow your love to
wash over saturate us. We're not getting drops today,
we're getting flood. So pour out, pour out your love
here in this place as part of Confession Church.
Would you just in your own way confess that you've forgotten
how much that God has loved you? That you've forgotten how much
the lengths that He went to to show you this love?
Would you open your heart to receive and to give your Father
love in Jesus name? Thanks for joining us today.
We hope God is speaking to your heart through this message.
If you'd like to connect with us, you can text connect to
407-588-0115 or visit Illuminate dot church.
Have a great week.