"If you want the presence of God in your life, you have to identify and remove every Idol that sits in his place because he will not take up residence in a heart that is already occupied with an idol of your creation." [28:35] (Make clip | Crop for social media | Crop + Caption)



"We only need to repair something if it has fallen into disrepair, right? Like we only need to repair something that is broken. Well, see the thing about the altar is that there was a time in Israel's history when priests ministered before the altar 24 hours a day, 7 days a week." [29:57] (Make clip | Crop for social media | Crop + Caption)



"God is with you, you are not alone when you walk through those School halls and they make fun of you or when they send you those messages through text and they make fun of you. I need you to know that God is with you." [52:59] (Make clip | Crop for social media | Crop + Caption)



"How is it possible that you can do the things of God but not be in the presence of God? How is it possible that you can have a level of faith that is performative that many think is amazing but God ain't even impressed with it?" [06:06] (Make clip | Crop for social media | Crop + Caption)



"You may not wear the title of Pastor, missionary or evangelist but wherever God has placed you, you are the priest of that place. You have been called to be the one who carries the presence of God with you." [41:39] (Make clip | Crop for social media | Crop + Caption)



"God sent me here tonight to tell somebody that you have to be willing to offend the one you love so you don't end up offending the god you serve. If you have people in your life who are a distraction, they are detractors, you can love them but you're going to have to release them." [44:18] (Make clip | Crop for social media | Crop + Caption)



"The price of God's presence costs these idols, the price of God's presence requires repairing this altar, the price of God's presence requires recommitting to God in an extravagant way, and the price of God's presence requires releasing some relationships." [45:46] (Make clip | Crop for social media | Crop + Caption)



"Many times we think worship is a song. Worship isn't a song. Worship is a heart posture. It's the way that you live your life, you submit your ambitions and your dreams and your wants and your desires at the foot of the cross." [23:02] (Make clip | Crop for social media | Crop + Caption)



"Faith is not us trusting God. Faith is God being able to trust us. That when he speaks we will obey. That is Faith. What we place our faith in determines where we take our courage from." [47:42] (Make clip | Crop for social media | Crop + Caption)



"Tonight God is calling us all to repair the altar of repentance. Sometimes what that means is that there are some people we need to have conversations with when we didn't show up the right way." [34:35] (Make clip | Crop for social media | Crop + Caption)

[Applause]

Well, good evening, CLC! How's it going?

Let me tell you, when I rolled up in the parking lot on the premises, I just felt the presence of God. So, I knew that this place has been drenched with the anointing, and I'm so excited and honored to be here at the First Love Conference. Y'all, this is my first time here; I pray it will not be my last.

But before you take your seat, can we give God praise for Pastor Brent and Pastor Soul? See, the thing y'all don't know is the Lord spoke to me and told me what they were going to be wearing tonight. He was like, "I need you to put on the black and white," 'cause I need y'all to come up here for a minute just so they can see these. This is my new brother and sister! You see how we did it? We didn't even talk about what we were going to wear, you know what I'm saying? Just on one accord.

But y'all give God praise for the angels of this house! I love you both so much.

Y'all may have your seat. Have your seat. I'm super excited to be here, and before I hop into the message, I wanted to just make a quick announcement to invite you to become a part of my digital community. Every week, I send out a newsletter that's designed to inspire you, encourage you, and equip you to live out the God-given purpose that He has in your life.

So, if you want to join, all you have to do is text my name, Nona, to 33777. That's all you have to do! Just text my name, Nona, to 33777, and you will become a part of that digital community. Also, when I have free master classes and little virtual get-togethers, you'll find out about that too. But if you want to connect with me, you can do it that way. Amen.

Now, before I hop into the message, I want to give a shout-out to my first ministry because I wear many hats, y'all. But the hat that I wear that is the most important to me is that of wife and mom. So, I wanted you just to get a chance to see my family. Hopefully, the picture will come up.

There they are! So, this is my family, y'all. My husband and I will celebrate 20 years of marriage in June, which is crazy to me! I got married one month out of college. I think everybody thought I was either crazy or pregnant. People were waiting; they were like, "What's going on here?" But I just found a man that I loved, and God has sustained us through the hills and the valleys and all the things in between. So, I thank God for that.

Standing next to my husband in the picture is my youngest son, ISAC. If you could just bring it back up for a second, he just turned 11. And standing next to me is my oldest son, Timothy Jr. He just turned—well, he's about to turn 14. He's 13, y'all! He had the nerve to look me in my eye like he's taller than me. So, he had the nerve to look me in my eye and try to tell me what he wasn't going to do. I was like, "Oh, so you think you pay bills in this house?" Okay, so we're at that stage. So, y'all keep me in prayer. Amen.

Y'all ready for the word? Let me tell you something. God has—when I was listening to the worship, I was just like, "God, thank you," because the word that He gave me, I believe, is tailor-made for this moment.

So, if you would just indulge me as I pray.

Father, I'm so grateful that you have created this moment. You have created this space where your daughters and your sons can gather to hear what you would have to say to us. God, speak through me because we don't need to hear a word from me. God, we need to hear a word from you.

And so, I decrease now; Holy Spirit, increase within me and stand tall. Have your way in this place. In Jesus' name, I pray. Amen.

Amen. You know, God gave me the word for this conference before I even knew the name of this conference. And it's funny because when He gave me the word, I was just like, "That seems like a really strong word." I didn't realize that He would be leading revival. Hallelujah! Because He gave me the type of word that maybe won't make you shout, but my prayer is that it will make you think.

Come on! When I heard that this was the First Love Conference, you know my mind immediately went over to Revelation 2. You may have heard it throughout the weekend, but I'm going to read it just momentarily.

In Revelation 2, we find that the church at Ephesus has a lot going on. They have a lot going for themselves. The Bible says that God speaks to the angel of the church in Ephesus, and He says these words in Revelation 2, beginning at verse 2:

"I know your deeds, your hard work, and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked people, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not and have found them false. You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name and have not grown weary. Yet I hold this against you: you have forsaken the love you had at first. Consider how far you have fallen; repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place."

The Bible says to the church at Ephesus, "Repent and do the things you did at first." I find it curious that in the same sentence where God is commending this church for their labor in the gospel, He's commending them for their perseverance and their diligence and their patience, and He's commending them for holding the line when it comes to evil.

In the exact same breath that He's commending this church for their faithfulness to the gospel, He is condemning their church for leaving their first love. How is it possible that you can do the things of God but not be in the presence of God? How is it possible that you can have a level of faith that is performative, that many think is amazing, but God ain't even impressed with it?

You know, when I think about the last four years, I feel like we've been in a bit of a spiritual strainer. For those of you who have never seen a strainer, I want to put this image on the screen because it's basically a tool used in a kitchen. What a strainer does is it separates solids from liquids.

When I think about the last four years, I feel like it's been a spiritual strainer because it has separated the spiritually solid from the spiritually liquid. When you look at the statistics, back in 2009, 90% of America identified as Christian. 50% of Americans attended church weekly. Fast forward to right before the pandemic in 2020, and studies showed that only 20% of Americans were attending church weekly. That's a drop of more than 50% in 11 years.

Of course, we know that churches closed their doors for a period of time, but when churches started to reopen, pastors reported that they were seeing at most 40% of their attendance return. That's it! So, I want you to do the math. If 20% of Americans were attending church weekly before the pandemic and only 40% of that 20% returned post-pandemic, 40% of 20% is 8%.

In 2009, 90% of Americans identified as Christian. In 2024, 92% of Americans do not attend church weekly. Here's why this matters: because research has shown that the vast majority of Christians only pray and read their Bible in a church service. So, if 92% of Americans are not attending church weekly, is it any wonder why we have the level of spiritual and moral decay that we are seeing in our nation?

You see, when I consider the state of the church and I consider even the state of the world, what I realize is that the charge that was leveled at the feet of the church at Ephesus can be leveled at so many of our feet today. What God has sent me here to do tonight is to challenge us to return to our first love. But you can't return to your first love without doing the first works. And if you don't know what the first works are, then you can't return to your first love.

So tonight, I'm going to equip you to do the first works so that you can truly honor your first love. And for those who like to take notes, the thing you have to understand is that our first love, like every song we sang tonight, our first love has to be the presence of God. That has to be our first love.

But y'all, the thing you have to understand about the presence of God is that it's not cheap. The presence of God is costly because the presence of God is priceless.

So tonight, I want to teach from the subject: The Price of God's Presence. The Price of God's Presence. I'm going to be in the book of 2 Chronicles, chapter 15, and I'm going to be in this text because there's a story here that teases out this truth in a very practical way. I'm going to end up reading chapter 15 in its entirety because there is context here that we have got to grasp in order to return to our first works.

I'm going to read the text before I tease out the truth in it, so just follow along with me. I'm in 2 Chronicles, chapter 15. The Bible says that the Spirit of God came on Azariah, son of Oded. He went out to meet Asa, who was king of Judah, and he said to him, "Listen to me, Asa and all Judah and Benjamin: The Lord is with you when you are with Him. If you seek Him, He will be found by you. But if you forsake Him, He will forsake you."

For a long time, Israel was without the true God, without a priest to teach, and without the law. But in their distress, they turned to the Lord, the God of Israel, and sought Him, and He was found by them. In those days, it was not safe to travel about, for all the inhabitants of the land were in great turmoil. One nation was being crushed by another and one city by another because God was troubling them with every kind of distress.

But as for you, Asa, be strong and do not give up, for your work will be rewarded.

You know what I love about this text is what happens next. I love Asa's response to what Azariah said. But before I even can get to that, I have to highlight, bold, and underline something that Azariah said. Azariah said to Asa, "He said the Lord is with you when you are with Him." But what does that even require? What does it require to be with God?

In order to answer that, I got to go to the book of Leviticus, chapter 10. You see, in the book of Leviticus, chapter 10, we find that the chief Levite, the chief priest Aaron, is with his sons. His sons are also priests, and their names are Nadab and Abihu. The Bible says in Leviticus 10, beginning at verse 1, that Aaron's sons, Nadab and Abihu, took their censers, put fire in them, and added incense, and they offered unauthorized fire before the Lord, contrary to His command.

So fire came out from the presence of the Lord and consumed them, and they died before the Lord. Moses then said to Aaron, "This is what the Lord spoke of when He said, 'Among those who approach me, I will be proved holy in the sight of all the people; I will be honored.'"

There's another translation that says, "Among those who approach me, I will be regarded as holy in the sight of all the people; I will be honored." See, the thing we have to understand is our God is not just a common God. I know we say things like, "Oh, God is my bro. God is my dude." No! God is the Sovereign King of the universe. He is the Holy of Holies. He is the only righteous God.

And we cannot allow our perception of God to make Him familiar to us because when we make God familiar, we end up doing exactly what Nadab and Abihu did. God is holy!

So when Azariah said that He is with you when you are with Him, remember that He is a holy God. Returning back to the text, the Bible tells us, picking up in 2 Chronicles 15, that when Asa heard these words, when he heard what Azariah said, you know he didn't just listen to him and say, "Oh, that sounds really cute, Azariah." No! When he heard what Azariah, son of Oded, said, the Bible says that Asa took courage.

He removed the detestable idols from the whole land of Judah and Benjamin and from the towns he had captured in the hills of Ephraim. He repaired the altar of the Lord that was in front of the portico of the Lord's temple. Then he assembled all Judah and Benjamin and the people from Ephraim and Manasseh and Simeon who had settled among them, for large numbers had come over to him from Israel.

When they saw that the Lord his God was with him, they assembled at Jerusalem in the third month of the 15th year of Asa's reign. At that time, they sacrificed to the Lord 700 head of cattle and 7,000 sheep and goats from the plunder they had brought back. They entered into a covenant to seek the Lord, the God of their ancestors, with all their heart and soul.

All who would not seek the Lord, the God of Israel, were to be put to death, whether small or great, man or woman. They took an oath to the Lord with loud acclamation, with shouting, with trumpets and horns. All Judah rejoiced about the oath because they had sworn it wholeheartedly. They sought God eagerly, and He was found by them, so the Lord gave them rest on every side.

Oh, but Asa ain't done yet! It goes on to say that King Asa also deposed his grandmother, mother Maakah, from her position as queen mother because she had made a repulsive image for the worship of Asherah. Asa cut it down, broke it up, and burned it in the Kidron Valley.

Although he did not remove the high places from Israel, see, this is a time in history where Israel and Judah are two separate nations, all right? They have two separate kings. Although he did not remove the high places from Israel, Asa's heart was fully committed to the Lord all his life. He brought into the temple of God the silver and gold and the articles that he and his father had dedicated. There was no more war until the 35th year of Asa's reign.

You know what I love about this text is how much I can relate to it. You see, I had the great privilege of not growing up in the church. You may think, "How in the world is that a privilege?" Well, let me explain. I was born to a mother who didn't want to have children. She and my father had been married for about 13 years, and she got pregnant with me. My father was excited, but she was angry. My father could not wait to be a dad, but halfway through her pregnancy, he started to experience stomach pain.

So, he went to the doctor to try to figure out what was going on, and they ended up diagnosing him with terminal stomach cancer. They gave him six months to live. My father was 34 years old. They gave him six months to live. My father fought as hard as he could against that diagnosis, and he lived until about two months shy of my second birthday when he passed away.

Shortly after he passed away, my mother moved us to the other side of the country. She was basically following a guy she barely even knew who promised to take care of her and take care of me. After we moved and settled down, that relationship immediately disintegrated. I remember there was a string of men who came in and out of her life and in and out of my life until she settled on a guy who became her live-in boyfriend.

I didn't like this guy from the beginning, y'all. There was something about his spirit that didn't sit right with me. I was about five and a half years old at the time, and I told my mother that I didn't like him, but she said that he would grow on me; just give him time.

Well, my mother's sister ended up passing away. This guy moved in with us, and so she had to go back up north to the funeral. I begged her to take me with her, but she said she could not afford another plane ticket, and so she left me with him.

The very first night that I was left alone with him, he assaulted me. The first night! After it was done, he said to me, "You better not tell your mother because she doesn't want you, and she'll get rid of you."

So for two years, while he repeatedly abused me, I didn't say a word until I finally worked up the courage to tell my mother what he had been doing. She had him arrested, and I thought it was over, y'all. But on the day of his release from jail, she took me with her to pick him up and brought him back home, where the abuse resumed.

At the age of nine, I felt so much pain in my life. I felt so unwanted and discarded. My mother was physically abusive and emotionally abusive, and here he was abusing me in all these other ways that at the age of nine, I decided to try to end my life—unsuccessfully. I thank you, Jesus!

Fast forward to the age of 11, I tried to end my life again, and I have a scar on the inside of my left wrist to remind me how faithful God is, y'all. But after that second attempt, a classmate of mine invited me to go to church with her. Mind you, I didn't grow up in a Christian home. I didn't know anything about God, Jesus, church, Bible, none of that.

So when she invited me to go to church with her, I thought we were just going to go over her house and play church. I didn't know what it was, but her mom came and picked me up and took me to the church thing. Y'all, I remember walking in the church building and for the first time feeling like I was wanted. For the first time in my life, I was made to feel like I belonged.

Because up until then, I had been acting out in school, y'all. I didn't know how to process what was happening to me at home, so I would be disruptive in school. And I say this story so many times in so many audiences because if you are an educator or if you are someone who works with children and they're acting out and they're just acting combative and they're being disruptive, instead of saying, "What's wrong with you?" ask them, "What happened to you?"

But nobody asked me what happened. That's right! But here I was in this church, and the very first sermon I ever heard, the preacher said, "God is a father to the fatherless." I was 11 years old sitting there listening to this, and I said, "If God is a father to the fatherless and I don't have my father, who is God?"

I didn't have a parent at home to explain the things of the spirit to me. All I had was this preacher who said this thing that pricked my heart and made me curious about who God was. I was so intrigued by who God was that when my friend's mother couldn't take me to church, I would just catch a ride with the youth pastor and his family.

I became so inquisitive about the things of God, and I would ask all these questions, and I would read the Bible on my own until one day at the age of 12, my youth pastor came to me and he said, "Nona, you seem to really have a passion for God. Is Jesus Lord of your life?"

I said, "I don't even know what that is." He shared the gospel with me. I accepted Jesus as Lord of my life, and let me tell you something, I decided from that day forward that I was going to live my life to please God.

I decided at the age of 12, in the absence of a parent to try to force me to do anything, I decided that I wanted to live my life for the glory of God. I would sit in church with young people my age who would be zoned out, playing games, tic-tac-toe, didn't want to be there. But because I had an authentic relationship with God that was not built because I was forced to have it, I realized at a young age that there is something valuable in the presence of God.

So when I made Jesus Lord of my life, y'all, I knew that everything I did, everything I said, and everything I desired had to align with what God wanted to do, what God said, and what God desired.

And this is why I say that not growing up in a Christian home was the best thing that could have ever happened to me because I was forced to understand the presence of God on my own. I did not have an intermediary; I did not have an interpreter.

And I think one of the things that I learned during that season of my life that we have to understand as Christians is that the presence of God is as near as your worship of Him and as far as your rejection of Him.

Jesus, many times we think worship is a song. Worship isn't a song; worship is a heart posture. It's the way that you live your life. You submit your ambitions and your dreams and your wants and your desires at the foot of the cross so that the God of the universe can take them and use them for His purposes. That is worship.

And you see, what we learn out of Asa's story is that when he grabbed hold to the truth of what prophet Azariah said—that the Lord is with you when you are with Him—when he grabbed hold to that truth, the Bible says that he took courage.

The Hebrew word that's translated courage there is the Hebrew word "chazaq." It means to become strong; it means to become resolute; it means to become firm. And so when Asa heard what the prophet said, he didn't just nod his head and smile. He didn't just offer a little patty cake. No! Asa got to work.

As a matter of fact, he takes 10 distinct actions in response to what the prophet said. I'm only going to cover four of them, but I encourage you to read 2 Chronicles 15 for yourself because there are 10 things that he does in response to recognizing the price of God's presence.

When you understand the value of God's presence, you make changes. When you understand that a holy God does not associate with unholiness, you make changes.

So I'm going to talk about four of the actions that Asa took because these are the first works that we have to return to if we really want the presence of God in our lives.

One of the first things that Asa did is he removed idols. The Bible tells us that immediately after Azariah shared his prophecy in verse 8, we heard that Asa took courage. He removed the detestable idols from the whole land of Judah and Benjamin and from the towns that he had captured in the hills of Ephraim.

In other words, Asa was so moved by what Azariah said that not only did he remove idols from his territory, he removed idols from the territory that he captured. He took inventory of every single idol that was in the vicinity of his control.

The Bible has a lot to say about idolatry, and many times we think idolatry is about statues and crystals and graven images. But the thing you have to understand is that idolatry is about exalting a created thing above the Creator. That's what idolatry is.

Idolatry is when we allow something that is created to occupy the throne of our heart in the place of God. Exodus 20:3 tells us, "You shall have no other gods before me." How do you know something is a god? Because it's what you look to to make a decision. It's the thing that you consult before you act.

And some of us are consulting created things more than our Creator. The price of God's presence costs the removal of every idol in your life.

But let me make this plain to you because maybe I'm talking too abstractly right now. How about some of you? Your idol might be a job. You will skip prayer, you will skip Bible study, you will skip the assembling of the saints if you can make more money because it's all about the bag. Let me get to the bag!

For others of you, your idol is a relationship. You will compromise your holiness if a friend or a boyfriend or a girlfriend wants to get together at midnight. Come on here!

For some of us, our idol is social media. We will spend hours mindlessly scrolling through Instagram and Facebook and TikTok, but heaven forbid we open the Bible. Two minutes later, we're ready to go to sleep.

For some of us, given the season that we're in right now, our idol is politics. Oh yeah, yeah! See, we don't know what the word of God says, but we can tell you verbatim what our favorite candidate says.

If you want the presence of God in your life, you have to identify and remove every idol that sits in His place because He will not take up residence in a heart that is already occupied with an idol of your creation.

This is why Asa removed every idol in his territory and the territory that he captured. That's a question that you have to consider: What are the idols in your heart that you consult? The places that you derive your sense of worth and identity apart from God?

It could be fitness. Some of us idolize our physique. We will spend hours in a gym; we will meticulously watch what we eat. But when it comes to the things of God, we become suddenly sloppy. We have a level of excellence when it comes to our body, but when it comes to the body of Christ, we'll just give it whatever we want to give it.

We have some leftover hours; we might volunteer at the church, but if we don't really feel like it, we won't. You have to ask yourself, "God, what is sitting on the throne of my heart in your place?"

He removed the idols. The second thing that he did is he repaired the altar. Verse 8 goes on to say that after he removed the idols, he repaired the altar of the Lord that was in front of the portico of the Lord's temple.

We only need to repair something if it has fallen into disrepair, right? Like, we only need to repair something that is broken. Well, see, the thing about the altar is that there was a time in Israel's history when priests ministered before the altar 24 hours a day, 7 days a week because the altar was the place of repentance for the people.

It's where they brought their sacrifice in order to repent and make penance for their sins, for their shortcomings. But what happened is the people stopped having a heart of repentance, so they stopped going to the altar, and so the priests stopped taking care of the altar, and they fell into disrepair.

He repaired the altar because it was neglected. But the thing I need you to understand, people of God, is that the physical neglect of the altar represented the people's spiritual neglect of God. They weren't bringing sacrifices of repentance to the altar because they had become so prideful and puffed up that they didn't think they had anything to repent for.

So when he started to repair the altar, what he was doing is he was signaling to the people that we are returning to repentance; we are returning to humility.

See, many times we focus on forgiveness. We focus on the need to forgive people for their offense against us. But if you're not careful, forgiveness can actually make you prideful. It can make you proud. You can get to a point where you're forgiving people so much that you adopt a martyr complex: "Look at me! I am so forgiving! I am so compassionate! I am so loving!"

But here's the thing: you cannot be prideful in repentance because repentance requires humility. It requires you actually having the guts to say, "I am not perfect, and I have failed the Lord. I have failed His perfect standards."

Repentance requires humility, and this is why Asa repaired the altar. Because he needed to return the people to a place of humility from a place of pride.

We have so much pride in the body of Christ, Jesus! It burdens my heart, and I'm going to be transparent with you now because, y'all, this isn't even in my notes. But I travel around, and I speak in so many different places, and many times I speak at conferences, and there are other people speaking.

I get so grieved when the speakers stay in the green room while the worship is happening. I get so grieved! Like, they're sitting back there waiting for their turn. How dare you? This platform isn't even about you! The worship is what we give to God because He is good, and He is worthy of our worship.

We are not here to exalt me; we are here to exalt Him because I don't have a heaven or a hell to put anybody in. I'm here! But I see it happen all the time. That's right! Just waiting to deliver the word when what they need is conviction.

This is why every time I preach anywhere that I go, when people ask, "Do you want to stay in the green room till it's time to speak?" Absolutely not! I need to worship just as much as anybody else does. I'm not special; I am literally just a vessel that God chooses to use, but I am no different than anybody in this room. I need Jesus just as much as everybody in this room does.

But when we don't repent, when we don't have a heart of repentance, we will become so prideful in believing that we're above that. This is why Asa repaired the altar.

And it's a question that I need to pose to all of you tonight: How many of you have an altar in your heart that is in disrepair? You can go days and weeks and months and even years without repenting for sin.

Let me tell you something: the easiest way to have a separation between you and God is to have unrepentant sin in your heart. You know why? Because God is holy, and a holy God will not take up residence in a sinful heart.

Tonight, God is calling us all to repair the altar of repentance. And sometimes what that means is that there are some people we need to have conversations with when we didn't show up the right way. Instead of saying, "Oh, they'll get over it," no, no, no, no! We need to have a broken and a contrite heart that says, "I don't want you to have to get over it. I am sorry."

The altar of repentance is necessary because God resists the proud, but He gives grace to the humble.

So, He repaired the altar. But after He repaired the altar, He didn't stop there, y'all. He publicly recommitted to God. You see, the Bible tells us in verse 10 that after he repaired the altar, they assembled at Jerusalem in the third month of the 15th year of his reign.

At that time, they sacrificed to the Lord 700 head of cattle and 7,000 sheep and goats from the plunder they had brought back. Then they entered into a covenant to seek the Lord, the God of their ancestors, with all their heart and soul.

All who would not seek the Lord, y'all, they put to death. They took an oath to the Lord with loud acclamation, with shouting, with trumpets and horns. All of Judah rejoiced about the oath because they had sworn it wholeheartedly. They sought God eagerly, and He was found by them. So the Lord gave them rest on every side.