Everyone, welcome! If you're watching online, welcome. We're so glad that you joined us this morning. Our LLC students are in the room for this service.
If you are considering applying for Leadership College for the 2025-2026 year, the price goes up at the end of this month. Shameless plug: you're going to want to apply right now. It's the lowest rate you're going to get all year, lc.tfh.org. I direct that program. It's incredible. Most of our staff is from Leadership College. So I'm just saying, if you want a purpose for your life, sign up for Leadership College. It's really cheap right now. It's not on the notes, but you're welcome.
Everyone, have a seat. I'm excited to bring the next installment of this series that we're in called "Making a Place." You know, as a church family, we've been taking January to pursue God's heart through prayer and fasting.
I don't know how many of you have been pushing aside the plate or pushing aside some entertainment choices, but I want you to know that God desires to dwell with us. He is so pleased in His heart. I'm just thinking of all the people, like Pastor Dave said, who waited in the parking lot to get in here. And you guys fill these rows and fill these seats every Sunday. Every seat, it pleases His heart. You being in the room pleases Him. He says, "I've always desired to dwell with them. I'm so glad that they've come and sacrificed their time. They've sacrificed their comfort to be with me."
It says in Exodus that He said, "Make me a sanctuary so I can dwell with you, so I can meet with you there, so I can speak with you there." But He says, "Do it according to the exact pattern that I will show you." You see, we can't just approach God and say, "Okay, God, here's my life." And He says, "Sweet, I'll find a seat in the back. Don't worry about it. Don't want to bother you." No, He says, "There's patterns and designs, but I want to meet with you."
He doesn't want to condemn you. He doesn't want to come and shame you, but He just desires to be with you. So as you make a place for Him, that's what's happening. He's coming and He's abiding in your life, and He's saying, "You're welcoming me, and I'm welcoming you."
You know, this fast in 2010 was when Rich and I, my husband, first prayed and fasted about each other. We liked each other, but we didn't know it. We hadn't said anything. And we were praying, "Is this the person God has for me to marry?" So at the end of this fast, 15 years ago, Rich came to my house with a shaky hand. He was nervous and had a Pete's coffee vanilla latte.
My dad answered the door and said, "Hello." He came in and said, "Hey, is this for Hillary?" He said, "Would you be my girlfriend?" At the end of this fast, hey, pro tip: fast before you ask someone to be your girlfriend or your boyfriend. Because it worked for us.
This month, we're celebrating 13 years of marriage. After this service, we're going on our anniversary trip. So this is going to be a quick message. We're going to wrap it up. It's going to be a quick three points. You can get the applications on your way out. I'm just joking.
We got married two years later in January during the fast, got married in January 2012. And then two years after that, in 2014, during the fast, we had our daughter, Jane Margaret Harris, our oldest child. And then a year after that, in January, during the fast, I cannot make this up, we said, "We're going to name it January and not January because January is our month." Everything big happens in January during the fast.
In January during the fast, a year after she was born, we got the devastating diagnosis of her lifelong disability. And then last January, you guys, 2024, during the fast, we prepared to say goodbye to her because Jane was so ill. No one knew what was going on. And we were fasting and we were praying. And Rich and I, well, we weren't really fasting; we were trying to survive in the hospital. But you guys were fasting for us.
And yesterday, January 11th, 2025, Jane celebrated her 11th birthday. God is so faithful. And as I look back on our life, I see the faithfulness of God. It's so easy in the moment to say, "Oh, God, are you here? I can't even feel you." But when you look back on the life that you've led, you have to proclaim, "No, God, you are good. You are faithful."
And I can't help but notice it all started with a fast. Year after year, January after January, month after month, Rich and I have made a place for God in our family, in our lives, in our homes. We have sacrificed entertainment. We have pushed back the plate. We have sacrificed our own comfort. We do not fast for our own comfort. I love myself an enchilada. We're not fasting for our own comfort. We're fasting to make room for the glory of God.
And let me tell you, when you make that choice to say, "God, I'm going to fast. I'm going to remove some things from my life so that you will come and meet with me," He will be faithful. And I had to think about it. Even if Jane hadn't survived 2024, would I still say that? Yes, I absolutely would. Because I cannot deny His provision and His presence and His blessing and the community and the health that He has surrounded us with. He is good always.
But first, you have to make a place for Him by laying yourself aside. Laying down your interests. Laying down your desires and your preferences.
I want to talk to you today about making a place for God with the removal of some things—by removing some things. We're going to talk about decluttering for Jesus. Do I have any declutters in the room? Oh, I love a good declutter sesh. When my kids go to school, I'm like, "See ya!" and then I'm just throwing away like half the stuff in their room. When they're in therapy later, we'll find out if that was a good idea or not, but for now, I'm happy. So everybody's happy.
Marie Kondo was not the first one to come up with this. We're going to look at King Josiah in his life. It's in 2nd Chronicles chapter 34. But first, here's what you need to know about King Josiah. King Josiah came from a long line of evil kings. They were hoarding idols and altars to gods that were not the God. They were adopting pagan ideologies and habits and mindsets that were not according to the word of God, and the land was becoming a place for God to live.
He came time to let God do lots of things for him. He did according to the word of God, and the authority of kings would be short-lived. He would do terrestrial or compulsive things that were thought of as awful. He took up the topic of religious freedom and sought to remove those who were not true followers. He began to purge the land and remove the idols.
He emerged after doing what was right in the eyes of the Lord and followed the ways of his father, David, not turning aside to the right or to the left. An eight-year-old king who did everything right. I would love to meet this kid. My eight-year-old just got a pair of Heelys yesterday, so that's where we're at. She had mac and cheese for dinner.
This is an eight-year-old king who did right in the eyes of the Lord, not turning aside to the right or to the left. In the eighth year of his reign, he was 16. While he was still young, he began to seek the God of his father, David. I love this detail so much. There are teenagers in this church that God is stirring your heart and He's beginning to put a hunger and a passion for holiness inside of you.
I truly believe that you don't even know how to articulate what that is inside of you because it's so adverse to what our culture is teaching you. Our culture is saying, "Oh, you're just anxious or you're just depressed." But I think God's stirring hunger for holiness inside of you. And I think you're uncomfortable in your environments at school and even sometimes at church because you're like, "Oh, I'm agitated." I must be... No, you're not. You have a call and a destiny, and you're set apart for the Lord.
And it happened for King Josiah. It can happen for you. So at 16 years old, I say, do not back down. If you're feeling that hunger, if you're feeling that urge, if your parents are like, "Sometimes we go to church," tell them, "Get up! I'm going to church. I have a hunger for God." And Josiah was a king, and I'm a king too. So let's get to the house of God.
At 16 years old, he began to seek the God of his father, David. In his 12th year, he was 20 years old. He began to purge Judah and Jerusalem of the high places, Asherah poles, which is just another idol, and idols. So at 20 years old, he begins to purge the land of all the idols and altars that his fathers before him had built, and he begins to make a place for God again.
I think as we examine his life, we can see a lot of areas in our life that we would be good to remove in order to make a place for God. The first thing that we see King Josiah remove is he removed spiritual apathy to make a place for God. We need to remove spiritual apathy.
It says in 2nd Chronicles 34, verse 2, "He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, followed the ways of his father David, not turning aside to the right or to the left." This is all the action that he did, all the zeal that he had inside of him. He began to seek the God of his father David. In his 12th year, he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem of high places, Asherah poles, and idols.
These he broke to pieces. He burned the bones of the priests on their altars. That is the next heavy metal band: "Burned the Bones." We are "Burned the Bones." Thanks for having us. He burned the bones of the priests on their altars. He tore down the altars and the Asherah poles and crushed the idols to powder and cut to pieces all the incense altars throughout Israel.
This is Josiah. He's like, "This is all his fathers before him were like, 'Well, we're just going to acquire all this stuff, and it's just an idol, and it's just an altar.'" And he's like, "No!" Heavy metal comes in there. He's burning things. He's crushing things to powder. He's burning the bones. He had to dig up bones of pagan priests and burn them. Talk about decluttering for Jesus, you guys!
He was like, "No, no, no! Stone left unturned! I will burn the bones of even the priests that are buried in the ground so that no one will have to partake of these idols and this worship any longer." This is Josiah, all the zeal of youth coming at us.
It's even more significant when we understand the culture in which he was doing this. Zephaniah prophesied to us about that culture in Zephaniah 1. The prophet Zephaniah, speaking the words of the Lord to this exact time and people that Josiah is leading, says this: "It will come about at that time that I will search Jerusalem with lamps, and I will punish the men of the world, and I will punish the men who are stagnant in spirit, who say in their hearts, 'The Lord will not do good or evil.'"
It does not say, "I will punish the men who are evil or who are sinning." It says, "I'm going to punish the men who are stagnant." And we know that word stagnant in English means to just be complacent. You're not moving backward, thank God, but you're also not moving forward. You're just staying in the same exact space.
It says that they say in their hearts, "The Lord won't do good or evil." It just reminds me of some believers who are like, "Why would I pray? Sometimes He answers, sometimes He doesn't. I don't know. It's all news to me." Stagnant in their hearts, complacent, sedentary, sitting there.
The Hebrew means this: "settled on their leaves." Leaves is the sediment on the bottom of a wine barrel. So settled on their leaves means hardened or crusted, an image from the crust formed at the bottom of wine long left undisturbed.
Here's a quote that emphasizes this: "The effect of wealthy undisturbed ease on the ungodly is hardening. They become stupidly secure." Whoa! It's heavy in the room this morning. What does that mean for you and me?
What does all of this mean? That means you have to beware of the spirit inside of us that says, "Meh." Oh, they're doing a fast? Oh, I might fast. Well, are you going to? I don't know. Yeah, we have midday pursuits. Oh, yeah, I've been to those before. He will or He won't.
Oh, you're praying for healing? That's funny. I've been praying for 20 years. I haven't seen anything. Sometimes He does, sometimes He doesn't. So instead of believing for anything, instead of stretching myself for anything, instead of serving or pouring out my life, I'm just going to sit here. Cute Christians. They worship with faith. They haven't seen anything. I'm just going to sit here, undisturbed and crusty in the bottom of my wine barrel, hardened, not moving.
Church, don't be a bunch of crusty Christians. Don't buy yourself the bumper sticker, "Crusty Christian." Oh, that guy's a crusty Christian. I wish it were that easy to tell. Well, sometimes it is that easy to tell, but I'm not going to bust out who you are.
Anyways, just kidding. Don't be a crusty Christian. How do you shake up the sediment at the bottom of the wine barrel? You turn it over. You move it. You pour it out.
Listen, if you're sitting feeling very undisturbed by what I'm saying, if you're thinking, "I don't even really care what she's talking about right now," I have literally one job for you. Ask the Holy Spirit: "Holy Spirit, disturb me." If you are not bothered by the spiritual climate of your schools and your home, ask the Holy Spirit: "Holy Spirit, disturb me. Shake it up. Shake up my soul. Let me weep again. Let me be sensitive to the things of Your presence. Let me run to the front of the altars. Let me worship with the Leadership College students. I want to be disturbed."
That's what we do during this fast. We say, "God, make sensitive the numb parts of our heart." And we use... All of us, pastors, leaders, everyone, we love watching the shows, and we do the thing, and we eat the food, and we're like, "Yeah." Then you fast, and you try to watch something you used to watch, and you're like, "Oh, I'm disturbed. I used to really like that show. Dang it. It's really... No, God doesn't like that so much."
Disturb us, Lord. Disturb us. Disturb us. Take us up. Let us not become hardened, and settled, and complacent, and stagnant. Let us be people of zeal that say, "Are there idols out there? We're going to crush them. Is there an altar over there? I'm going to burn it. I'm going to break it. Crush it to powder. Is there bones underneath? Dig them up. We're going to burn those bones."
No. What? Fire it up? Fire it up about advancing the kingdom? Yes! Burn the bones. Dig up the altars. Break them to pieces. Crush it to powder. Ask the Holy Spirit: "Disturb me."
Why? Not for the sake of being weird and mad and mean to people. No, no. Because we're making a place that is worthy of God's holy presence. A place that is worthy of the power and the weight of His glory. And it's not just for a Sunday. It's for your homes. It's for in your child's bedroom where they're having night terrors. It's for in your marriage when you guys cannot get through that argument. The glory of God can fall right then. The sensitivity of the Holy Spirit can fall right then.
But we're saying, "Lord, disturb me again. Disturb me again. Break off spiritual apathy." We have to remove spiritual apathy.
The second thing: we got to remove pride. Josiah received the word with humility. In the 18th year of Josiah's reign, so he's 26, to purify the land and the temple, he sent Shaphan, son of Azaliah, and Messiah. I'm probably saying these names perfectly, by the way.
He sent Shaphan, son of Azaliah, and Messiah, the ruler of the city, with Joah, son of Joah, as the recorder, to repair the temple of the Lord, his God. So they've been purging the land. They've been dealing with the land. And now he says it's time to make provisions for the temple because the temple has been neglected.
So they sent him to repair the temple of the Lord, his God. While they were bringing out the money that had been taken into the temple of the Lord, Hilkiah, the priest, found the book of the law of the Lord that had been given through Moses. They're cleaning out the temple, and they find the Bible in church. You guys, that's crazy! They have been going to church for what was 60 years without knowing where the Bible was.
You can go to church a long time and never heed the word of God, pay attention to the word of God, live by the word of God. That's what these priests were doing. They found the word of God after 60 years. And if it's been like a week since you read your Bible, feel better about yourself. They went 60 years, and they're like, "Oh crud, we found it. I found the Bible. It's right here."
And all this time, all the priests were probably like, "Oh, I read my... Yeah, I read the book of the law. I read it like 20 times yesterday." And then like, "Guys, guess what I found? The book of the law." They're like, "Oh shoot, we're all outed. None of us have been reading it for 60 years."
It was given through Moses. Hilkiah said to Shaphan the secretary, "I have found the book of the law in the temple of the Lord." I found, like, this revelatory statement: "I found the Bible in church." Lost for 60 years.
They have, for a generation, not heard the words of God read off paper. Josiah is in his late twenties. He in his whole life has never heard the words of God read to him. But yet he is stirred to do this purging and this decluttering and this removal of all the idols because of the leading of the Holy Spirit in his life.
And that's a word for some of you today. You're in this room, and you're like, "I've never read the Bible." You're saying all these Bible names. I have no idea what this is. You can be sought out for and searched for and drawn in by the Holy Spirit without ever reading the Bible. He knows your name. He knew who you were when you were formed in your mother's womb. He has a purpose and a plan for you.
And even to come in this room, He's been stirring you. He brought you to this place. And when we make room for Him, He says, "I will now reveal My word to you." So after 60 years, they're about to read the words of the book of the law.
It says in Shefan read from it in the presence of the King. When King Josiah heard the words of the law, he tore his robes. This was a sign of grief and repentance. He gave these orders to Hilkiah, Ahikam, son of Shefan, Abdon, son of Micah, Shefan, the secretary, and Josiah, the king's attendant.
"Go and inquire of the Lord for me and for the remnant in Israel and Judah about what is written in this book that has been found. Great is the Lord's anger that is poured out on us because those who have gone before us have not kept the word of the Lord. They have not acted in accordance with all that is written in this book."
Josiah, when confronted with the word, responds in grief, repentance, humility, and a heart of, "I have to know more. I have to know more." And he did not have to respond this way. He could have said, "I'm not the one who acquired all these idols and altars. I'm the one doing the dirty business. I'm burning the bones over here. I'm doing the good stuff. This isn't about me."
But spiritual pride is when you're confronted with the word and you say, "That's not for me. That's for them. I'm not living in sin. They're living in sin. That's for them." But humility is when you approach the word and you say, "Oh, that's for me. That's for me."
King David said, "Search me and know me. Try me." And it says King David was a man after God's own heart. Why? Because God cannot resist a spirit of humility. He cannot resist a spirit of humility.
James 1 says, "So get rid of all the filth and evil in your lives and humbly accept the word God has planted in your hearts, for it has the power to save your souls."
And 2 Chronicles, this is the best verse for a fast: "If my people who are called by my name humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land."
When we are humble to receive Him, He responds. We do not have time for spiritual pride that would block up the heavens. We need to hear God for our lives. You need to hear God for your life.
And when we are humble and we come before Him and we say, "Examine me, Lord. Search me, Lord," He is faithful to respond. He hears from heaven, says that He has the power to save your very soul.
I challenge you this week as we're pursuing the Lord, open up a Bible reading plan. There's a YouVersion Bible app you can get. It's so user-friendly, so simple. You can listen to it on your phone. You can look up whatever plan you want on there and just start at Genesis 1. And before you read, say, "Holy Spirit, examine my heart, and I ask for Your word to speak to me."
I still have to do it all the time. Sometimes I'm reading the Bible, and I'm like, "What are we even saying? What are we even reading right now?" No, take a moment, just pause, just pause and don't get religious and say, "Holy Spirit, speak to me. Examine my heart. I want to receive the word with humility because I'm making a place for You."
I want to receive the word with humility because I'm making a place for the Lord to dwell in my life. And I need His power. I need His healing. I need His direction. I need His peace. So we cast off pride and we receive the word with humility.
And the last thing is this: we remove the high places. Josiah removed the undealt with places. Even the altar at Bethel, the high place made by Jeroboam, son of Nebat, who had caused Israel to sin. Even that altar. I love the Bible's talking to us like, "You know the one we're talking about, even that one." You're like, "Totally. We were there. We know what you're talking about."
Even that altar in high place, he demolished. He burned the high place and ground it to powder and burned the Asherah pole, also just as he had done at Bethel. Josiah removed all the shrines at the high places that the kings of Israel had built in the towns of Samaria and that had aroused the Lord's anger. Josiah slaughtered all the priests of those high places on the altars and burned human bones on them.
Josiah out here doing the most to the high places. No holds barred, going for it, heavy metal, destroying the high places. So vehement about this. He's like, "This has to be done. The memory of these altars and these idols has to be gone."
The high places were places of worship to other gods outside of the temple. So they had kings worshiping in the temple, but then you go into this little valley, and there's a high place, and it's the worship to the god of fertility. Or you have worship in the temple, and then you go up to this little hill, and it's worshiping the god of provision and agriculture. Over here, a little high place. Down here, a little high place.
And that can be how it is. We worship God on Sundays and in the temple and in the sanctuary, but then over here we got a little lust high place. And over here we got a little addiction high place. And over here we got a little stagnant high place. And over here we got a little greed high place and a little pride high place and a little gluttony high place.
It's okay. I worship God on Sundays. Yeah, but you got a lot of little high places going on. And Josiah is ripping down these high places. He hates them. And it's crazy because kings after him, king after king after king, or kings before him, it says, "King so-and-so, in like quotes, king so-and-so did right in the eyes of the Lord, but he did not destroy the high places."
Fast forward a couple kings. King so-and-so, he did right in the eyes of the Lord. Oh, he loved God, but he didn't destroy the high places. But king so-and-so, it says it over and over again, did right in the sight of the Lord, did not destroy the high places. Did right in the sight of the Lord, did not destroy the high places.
Why was this a big deal? God hated the high places. It's believed that when the book of the law was read to Josiah, it was Deuteronomy. And in Deuteronomy, God is very specific: "You take care of those high places. No, no, I don't even want to smell them. I don't want to look at them. We don't want to remember them. They are gone, removed forever. Do whatever it takes to get rid of these."
And yet, king after king, just leave them here and there, here and there. Why did God hate them so much? Because the high places represented compromise. The high places represented doors that led to a trajectory—a trajectory of destruction. The high places represented the undealt with things in our life.
The Holy Spirit is so faithful to reveal to us the high places in our lives. And He does not come to condemn or shame or rub it in your face and say, "It was your father's high place, and it's your high place. It's going to be your kid's high place too." No, He says, "I'm showing you this high place because I want you to deal with it. I want you to crush it to powder. I want you to burn the bones of this high place. I don't want your lineage to ever remember that this high place existed."
If the Holy Spirit reveals something in your heart, don't push it down. Like, "Oh no, no, we don't want to talk about it. We don't talk about that one. That's under that tree over there. That's up on that mountain over there. We just worship on Sunday. We don't talk about it."
No, don't suppress the high place. Deal with the high place. Expose the high place. Dig up the bones of the high place. Burn the bones of the high place. You deal with the high place.
Rich and I, in our home that we moved into a couple years ago, we discovered a crack in the ceiling of our vaulted ceiling in the bedroom. Vaulted ceiling, so quite literally a high place. So it's up there in the high place. I'm like, "Oh my gosh, there's a crack in the high place."
So Rich, so good, faithful, handyman, goes and patches it real nice and does a real good job. You guys all know where this story is going. This winter, what did we find in the high place? Moisture leaking out of the high place.
You don't patch a high place. You don't say, "Put a band-aid on the high place." Just don't look at it. "Oh, don't worry about my high place. Just don't, just put a... We just patch it. We just patch it. We say a prayer, we patch it, but we don't actually deal with it."
You don't do that. The high place will come for you. The high place patches seasonal. Come winter, the high place will start. It's not leaking, and everyone will notice, and you won't be able to go to sleep at night because you'll be looking at the ceiling like, "That's my high place, and it's leaking moisture from the ceiling, and it's getting really, really obvious."
You deal with it. So we called a roofing company. They came out, as you know, the clipboard and not a lot to offer us and said, "Let's check out the roof." And I'm like, "Okay, well, it's here in the ceiling of our bedroom."
"Okay, let me go look at outside the roof." And he stood back and looked at it and said, "Okay, so I'll email you a quote, and then we'll be back in a couple weeks, and then we'll get in there and we'll see what's going on." I'm like, "Sir, there is moisture inside of my house. I'm going to need you to deal with the ceiling right now." But that's not what happened.
I thought, "This cannot be. We have to deal with this." So there's gotta be a guy. There's always a guy, right? You got a leak? There's a guy. Or you got carpet issues? I got a guy. You got a car issue? I got a guy. So I'm like, "Who has the guy?" Like, someone has it. You all have a guy. Maybe you are that guy. And we want your number after service because we all need the guy.
If the guy could just stand up and stand right up here real quick, we're all just going to... Guy, is that you guys? Someone does. Someone would stand up. So we call, I got a guy. We found the "I got a guy."
He comes to the front door, and there's "I got a guy." And I say, "Okay, I got a guy. We got a crack in the ceiling. Now it's leaking moisture." And he said, "Okay, I'll take a look at it." Shuts the door. And I'm like, "Is he coming back? Or is he sending a quote? Will he be back in a couple weeks? I don't know."
Next thing I know, I hear boom, boom, boom, boom. And he's ripping the tiles off the roof. We don't even know this guy's name. He's "I got a guy." He's on top of my roof, ripping tiles off. We got the nice clay tiles. He's like, "I don't care. We're going to try to find the problem." Rips them off.
Two and a half minutes go by. He texts a picture of the issue to Rich and me. We're standing in the kitchen. We're like, "I got a text." Rich is like, "Me too." We're like, "Did he just text us the issue?" He's like, "Found it. Here's your problem. Not going to cause long-term damage. It'll be 400 bucks. I'll fix it in two days." We're like, "Boom! I got a guy."
This is why you got to have a guy. We don't have time to wait. You got to get a guy. Listen, if you have a high place, you don't have time to wait to deal with that thing. It's going to cause eternal damage to the infrastructure of your temple. You're going to need to get a guy.
And if you don't know how, I don't know how. I've been struggling. Why do you think I'm here at church? I don't know how to deal with this stuff. I got a guy, and it's the Holy Spirit, and He is not afraid to go there. He is not afraid to search out the hidden places.
It says that the Holy Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. And He knows the heart of God, and He knows the heart of man. And He is saying, "Hey, let's rip the tiles off this thing. Let's find the issue, and let's deal with it."
Oh, in a couple of weeks after you tell me how much it will cost? No, right now. And guess what? It costs nothing because I paid for it with My blood. It's covered. You don't have to live with that thing anymore. You don't have to live with that shame anymore. You don't have to live with that habit anymore. You don't have to live with the lust problem anymore. You can surrender it.
You can deal with the high places in your life and say, "Holy Spirit, come fix it up. Make this house a house worth living in because we need Your glory, and we need Your peace, and we need Your presence to inhabit this temple." The glory of God.
We need to make a place and not leave the undealt with things over here and in the back of the church and over here on the corner and under the valley. No, no, no. Dig it up. Deal with it. Holy Spirit, come reveal the high places in my life so that I might be a temple that is worth housing Your glory.
That is what He wants to do for us. In verse 27, it says, "Because your heart was responsive and you humbled yourself before God when you heard what He spoke against this place and its people, and because you humbled yourself before Me and tore your robes and wept in My presence, I have heard you."
He chooses to have an audience with you when you humble yourself in repentance. Oh, you, I hear. Is there anything more powerful than the God of the universe telling you, "It's okay, I hear you. I hear you"?
He says, "I have heard you. Now I will gather you to your ancestors, and you will be buried in peace." The Holy Spirit does not come to condemn. He comes to fill you with peace.
And if I could describe the glory of His presence in any way, I would say it's His goodness and His peace—overwhelming, overwhelming your home, overwhelming your marriage, overwhelming your future, your decisions, your life.
He wants to bring peace when we remove pride and when we remove apathy. And when we say, "I'm going to deal with the things that I've left."
I know what those places are in my life. I know the habits. I know the hang-ups. You don't have to raise your hand at me or anything. I believe the Holy Spirit's stirring those things in your heart.
And I think there's even believers. You've been a part of this church for a long time. He's so faithful to reveal even the small things that we've picked up along the way.
So as we continue this fast, even through the next week, I encourage you to ask the Lord, "Lord, what are those things in my life that need to be crushed to powder? What do I need to handle once and for all?"
But in this room, as those things are coming to your mind, I won't ask you to stand or raise your hand or anything, but just in your own way, you can put your hand on your heart. Begin to tell the Holy Spirit, "Holy Spirit, help me deal with this. I'm ready to deal with this."
And in a moment, I'll open up the altars. There will be people up here who want to pray and agree with you that those things are dealt with once and for all. You cannot deal with the high places alone. You need people to walk through life with you, who can help you in your journey of healing, who can help you in your journey of restoration.
So we're going to have the altars open. But just in this moment, just you and the Lord, you tell the Holy Spirit, "I want to deal with those things. I don't want anything to hold me back."
If you want to invite Jesus into your life for the first time, you're saying, "I don't know what that's like to hear God's voice. I don't know what it's like to have Him hear my prayers. I don't know what it's like to have the peace of God, but I want it."
And I want to invite Jesus into my life. If you want to say yes to that peace, if you want to say yes to that joy, if you want to say yes to that person who is Jesus Christ, and you want to say, "I want to follow Jesus this morning. I want to make that decision." Would you just raise your hand right now if you want to say yes to Jesus?
Thank you, ma'am, for wanting to struggle. I don't want to have the tug of war of the things I'm holding on to and being pulled towards the Lord and pulled back. No, I want to let go, and I want to follow God, and it is exciting, and it is going to be powerful.
And He has very, very good things planned for your life, but you can't do it alone. You have to join a community of believers that support you and rally around you.
So as you're leaving, please grab one of these cards. We want you to connect with us at our connect station outside and find out your next steps here at the church and how you can become a better follower of Jesus.
So if you made that decision, we're so happy for you. We're so glad that you've joined heaven. You've joined the family of believers this morning. We're so glad you made it into the building. So we celebrate with you. We celebrate with you.
For the rest of you, go ahead and stand to your feet. And if we could all just lift our hands, I'm going to just pray a prayer of declaration over us. You can close your eyes, agree with me, receive this prayer, pray it out in your own words.
But Lord, we make a declaration as a church that we will make space for You. We will make space for You. Whether we've been in church for one year or two years, we will make space for You. One day or 20 years, we will make a place, God, for Your glory to dwell.
Let us be a people that are worthy of inhabiting Your glory and Your presence. God, I pray, Jesus, that You'd fall on Your church even in the coming days as we pursue You through prayer and fasting. Show us what we're lacking. Show us what areas we're holding back.
And we pray right now, Lord, as a church, full surrender, full surrender in Jesus' name. You can have it all because Your presence is worth more to us than our temporary comfort. Rest on Your church, rest on Your people this week. In Jesus' name, amen.
Amen. You guys, we'll see you.
on Jan 12, 2025
