What Does God Want? • Ps David Storer

God doesn't just want our worship. He doesn't just want our obedience. He doesn't actually just want your service. What he wants is you. He wants you. Not perfect you, just you. Falling over, getting up, imperfect you, he wants you. It's very valuable to him. Alright? You with your doubts, with your history, with your questions, that is the only thing that makes the entire bible make sense. It's God's pursuit of you. Yeah. Alright? From the garden to Genesis to the wedding in Revelation, the whole bible is a story of a God who refuses to be without you. [00:17:51] (56 seconds)  #YouOverPerfection

And so the Bible isn't the story about us reaching for God, it's the story of God reaching for us again, and again, and again, and again. Listen to the way the way Jesus prayed in in John 17, he says, Father, I desire that they also whom you've given to me may be with me where I am. Alright? I'm praying, father, they'll obey and they'll be behaved. Now he says, no. What I want is they'll be with me where I am. Alright? That's the heart of God in one sentence. I want them with me. [00:21:59] (37 seconds)  #GodReachesForUs

And now that you know what God wants, what are you going to do? Are you gonna give him your yes? He's not waiting for you to get perfect. He's just saying, sitting here right now with all that's going on in your life, would you open your heart to me? That's so precious to him. Many of us in this room know the power of that yes. Not imperfection, struggling, fumbling, bumbling, but we gave God our yes and his grace entered our lives, and that's our beginning. [00:30:35] (48 seconds)  #SayYesToGod

It's, please don't make it all about a rescue, and I get to go to heaven, forgiveness, yeah, all that, but if the bible ends there, it's about union. It's about union. Alright? God with us, and us with God. And just before this picture of union, we get a clear revelation of what God wanted all along. Revelation 19, the wedding celebration of the lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready. Now, that's symbolic language. The fact that the bible wants to refer to you, church, as the bride is is is very insightful. [00:22:56] (47 seconds)  #UnionWithGod

Where are you? That reveals something about the heart of God. It wasn't judgment, it was the it was a grieving over the loss of of relationship. Please don't think God was upset because somebody ate his apple. Please don't do that. That is so petty. No, that was you know what that was? That was relational betrayal. If we had time, we'd look at the fact that what they said was, hey, so we can have this knowledge and be like God without God. Yeah, we want that. That was relational betrayal, and it wounded the heart of God because they chose life without him. [00:13:33] (43 seconds)  #RelationalBetrayal

Why take the enormous risk of giving them a free will to choose for ourselves what we wanted, knowing we could take that freedom and walk away from him with that freedom? And and when the first humans did choose to use their freedom to betray him, why didn't he just hit the delete button? I said, that was a bad idea. Let's not do that again. No, he doesn't. And then after humanity chooses life independent of God, the the first recorded question that God asked is not, what have you done, but where are you? [00:12:52] (41 seconds)  #GodStillReaches

Wow. We're not talking about religion. We're not talking about church attendance. We're talking about a very deliberate, intentional moment where you took your freedom and you chose God with it. If you can't point to a time in your life where you willingly and intentionally took your freedom and said, today, I choose to open my life to you. Come into my life. I need you, God. I know I'm incomplete without you. If you've never done that, you need to do it today. And that's what this prayer is. It's a heart opening prayer to God. [00:32:13] (40 seconds)  #ChooseGodToday

And every time I want you to know I get this part. Every time you lift your hands and declare your devotion to God, you're actually declaring to the spirit realm. You see? God didn't make a mistake. Giving us free will wasn't the floor in our design. It's the only way that God could get what he wanted. Me. Me. It's the only way you could get it. And that's why your worship matters more than you know, because you become a revelation, a holy shockwave through the spirit realm. [00:28:21] (40 seconds)  #WorshipRevealsYou

and we get it now, that you couldn't have this without the freedom, that love without choice isn't love at all, and that devotion freely given is more powerful than obedience demanded. God, we get it now. Alright? The risk was real, the pain was great, but the reward was God got what he wanted, you. You. Another version of you that he had to manipulate with fear, not someone bribed into devotion with blessings, not someone pretending faithfulness over selfishness, but you for real. Yeah. Fumbling, bumbling, falling over, getting up, struggling, but God watches you get up, and he says, wow. [00:27:16] (52 seconds)  #DevotionOverObedience

this being that's like him and yet freely choosing their devotion towards him. That's what makes your worship so precious to God. So you do. That's why because that's what it is. It's like, god and the angels are looking on it, and the angels are going, wow, that being has the freedom. And they're taking that freedom, and they're loving you with it. Wow. That's amazing. Yeah. It's a wonder to them. Alright? [00:20:18] (33 seconds)  #PreciousWorship

why, over and over, we read now, we go start going through the thread, and humans are messing up over and over and over again, worshiping other spiritual beings, acting ungrateful, unfaithful. Why didn't he abandon them? Why does he keep reaching out? What does he want? Does he want our obedience in exchange for his reward? What is it? Alright? Or does he want something deeper? Alright? Something like the treasure of a relational connection with a being that he knows has the freedom to choose him or reject him. Again, does he want the treasure of a relational connection with a being that he knows has the ability to either choose him or reject him. [00:14:23] (56 seconds)  #TreasureOfRelationalLove

And and and so why? Well, why did God bother? Why did he create us so much like himself? Alright? So I'm building up this curiosity, I hope, in your mind, and then he said, it says, they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, not shouting from a distance, not sending an angel instead, but God himself coming down, walking amongst them. Why? What did he want? Why was he doing that? Alright? Why would an all powerful, all sufficient God who needs nothing is complete in himself, why would he choose to be amongst these beings? [00:12:05] (44 seconds)  #GodWalksWithYou

Because once we understand what God wants, it tells us something of the ways of God. Right? It's a revelation of his ways, and it, therefore, we can position ourselves to receive, you know, what he wants. So where can we go to really settle this question and and discover what God wants? Well, I'm gonna put to you that there's actually one story in your bible. There's only really one story, and and it's a thread that runs from Genesis all the way to Revelation, and once you see it, you can't unsee it. [00:07:22] (40 seconds)  #OneStoryOfScripture

So what does God want? Have we ever really stopped to answer that question? Because a lot of our time is spent thinking about what we want. We want answers. We want healing. We want clarity. We want breakthrough, and none of those things is wrong. Probably, we'll start talking about them next Sunday, but right now, we're trying to answer this question, what does God want? You know, and I wonder if if that's part of the reasons why we struggle to receive what we want from God because we haven't really understood what God wants. [00:06:38] (44 seconds)  #UnderstandGodToReceive

let us make creatures that are just obedient to carry out our will. No, he's saying, let us make them like us. Alright? So God shared something of himself with us, his capacity to relate, to reason, to reflect, and the freedom to choose. I might as well tell you that I When I'm making certain points, I hear dramatic music in my head. Alright? So I'm just gonna go ahead and do that. I'm just I'm over it. I'm old enough to be so relaxed up here, I'm just gonna go, you know, I'm hearing it, so I'm gonna say, the freedom to choose. [00:11:15] (43 seconds)  #CreatedToRelate

Or how could these self willed, selfish creatures ever bring any joy to the heart of God? But then, they see you. They see you. Not perfect, but still faithful. They see the free will of humans with faith, choosing him over fear, choosing sacrifice over self, and in that moment, they see, listen, they see the wisdom of God. I'm gonna ask the team to come back and help me. This this this is the the awe that they're seeing. God, we thought you'd made a big mess up, but now we see what you wanted, [00:26:25] (51 seconds)  #AngelsMarvelAtUs

So I think it's this question. Let's settle. Okay. In our minds, what does God want? Because it's actually a revelation of who he is. That's where we're going this morning. So maybe you already think you know the answer to that, and you're thinking, you poor Perth person. Right? You you you have had to come to Melbourne to be enlightened about what God wants. We know what he wants. He wants our faith, he wants our worship, and yes, all of those things, but what if all those things point to something deeper? [00:05:52] (38 seconds)  #SomethingDeeperThanWorship

I flew into Calcutta in the nineteen eighties thinking, well, you just you just get out of that terminal and catch a taxi, and off you go. Well, not so. So, I arrived about 10:30 at night, and I walked out into the car park area and was immediately mobbed by this pack of boys, grabbing at my bag, yelling at me, waving their arms, and and I just kept walking thinking, they'll give up. No, the crowd just got bigger, and in the end, it was such a ruckus that I just turned around and started to walk back towards the terminal to try and get away. [00:02:11] (41 seconds)  #LightbulbMoment

at the door was a security guard, and I said to the security guard, what did they want? What did they want? I couldn't work out what they wanted. Because it was quite obvious they weren't trying to steal anything. They weren't trying to be violent towards me, but it was very confusing. What what do they want? And he said, well, these boys are homeless. They sleep here, and they've worked out, rather than beg, it's better to try and carry your bags and get some money that way. And so they're arguing over who gets to carry your bags, and it was like a lightbulb moment. [00:02:53] (39 seconds)  #SeeTheHiddenWhy