Intimacy With Jesus • Eric Gilmour • SOZO Church, Belfair

[Music] is yesterday during the time we were just worshiping jesus i had a moment where jesus just kind of had me kind of open my eyes and look around and what i've described it like is anyone ever going to an amazing i grew up really poor and didn't really know that food tasted good okay if you have a middle child of 11 when you're feeding like 13 people it's like usually not that good you know it's just like just to live not die here's food you know and so i remember going to a really good good restaurant for the first time and i was like i had no idea food could taste like this i was like oh my gosh food's good you know and so i i describe it like the second i discovered how good food was the only way it could be better is to share that with someone you gotta try this but it felt like when i met jesus i was like you gotta meet this you gotta try this this is amazing but then when you do that and someone's like oh it's not that good that's how i felt i was like you you're just full you don't know you know it's like you this is amazing it's the best meal i've ever had in my life and no one else thought it was that good but yesterday it felt like we were all eating from the same meal which is jesus and everyone thought it was the best meal ever and i was like i'm home i'm with my tribe i'm with my people who who see who i see and so so i love erica reddy for that because i feel like we we've both dined at the same table and discovered we don't want to eat anywhere else there's just one that satisfies and his name's jesus so with that i want to honor eric as he comes up would you honor the man of god all right if we can just take a deep breath in just breathe in breathe out just rest rest is the realm of reception when we rest we can receive so just breathe in one more time breathe in breathe out thank you jesus you're all i want [Music] you're all i've ever [Music] needed you're all i want help me know you you're all alive [Music] you're all i want help me know you are your name is like honey on my lips your spirit like water [Music] jesus i love you your name is your word is jesus i love you i love jesus i love you jesus i love you i love you jesus i love you jesus i love you i love you jesus lamb of god worthy is your name jesus lamb of god worthy is he your name um oh precious love of mine your lips they drip with honey and your kiss is like wine lord your voice is so tender and your eyes are so kind your touch is bliss i leave everything else behind i am yours and you are mine everything in you i find it's you that soothe me you excite me you spread joy like rain inside me and even when i'm shattered all my pieces fly to you i worship you i praise you lord i give you glory you are worthy turn in your bible to psalm 95. my heart beats fast when i read these words that we're going to look at here it's in verse 6 that's what we're going to look at so it says here come let us worship and bow down let us kneel before the lord our god our maker for he is our god and we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand so today if you hear his voice do not harden your hearts we'll stop right there come let us worship and bow down in medieval times when soldiers surrender they knelt as a sign of surrender when you throw yourself at the feet of someone in the thing that you're doing you're expressing a extravagant act you can look in the scriptures and you can find over and over when a person throws themselves at someone's feet they're in deep need or they're in deep awe every time an angel shows up how does a person respond they fall down this throwing ourselves at the feet of jesus and bowing at the feet of jesus is the expression of worship and i guess the first point of the message today is this is that if you live bowing down everything goes over your head you may feel in your life like you get hit by all kinds of arrows i'm telling you if you'll live low all those things will fly right over you and this is what i believe we're seeing here come let us worship and bow down this word come is an invitation it's a it's not a command it's literally a cry for you to avail such a privilege come come let us worship and bow down let each one of us recognize who he is in this way you are worthy lord i give you everything when you bow down your head goes down with you that means all of your thoughts when you bow down your eyes go down with you that's everything that you give attention to when you bow down your mouth goes down with you that means everything that you've got to say about the matter when you bow down your ears go down with you which means it doesn't matter what anybody else says everything's submitted to god when you bow down you are ending all of your activity and movement and bringing yourself to a place of surrender at the feet of the lord come let us worship and bow down herein is the key of what worship looks like i put you above everything he's greater than the angels and he's higher than the priests and every knee will bow to his exalted seat seven stars are in his hand and every crown is at his feet complete and perfect are his ways he's the ancient of days the earth and sky flee from his face he's a person a taste a resting place a refuge for any case oh hasten the day when my faith shall be sight and because he is bright my clothes become white he's light life in love he's jesus above and when we see him as this and we place him as this we worship him i have a conviction in my heart it may not be shared by others but i have a deep sense of the greatest ill in humanity is lack of worship john piper once said missions exist because worship does not what does that mean it means that you and i were in need of evangelism of the gospel because we were not worshiping the lord the gospel is a call for all to fall at the feet of jesus and place him where he belongs above everything above your mind above your emotions above other people above what ha what's happening in the united states what's happening in the world you place him above all that's what it means when we fall to the feet of jesus i give you everything i've got nothing left to give him at the end of myself here i am you remember when the centurion comes to jesus what does he do he falls right to the feet of jesus he is at his wits and he's got nowhere else to go it was abraham lincoln who actually said i've been driven to my knees by the overwhelming conviction i have nowhere else to go and yes circumstances in life can bring us to this but it's so much better when you just choose it it's so much better when you just live that way and as i said at the beginning with the very first point of the message if you live low everything will go over your head i'm telling you a lot of our unnecessaries that we go through in our minds and in our hearts and in our relationship has to go has its roots in we haven't went to the feet of jesus the next thing here it says is and i got to make a mention of this it says the lord our maker i don't know why but we as humans forget this all the time that he made us the bible even goes out of its way to say he made us and not we ourselves he's like if you don't understand he's your maker well let me give it let me give it to you like this you didn't make yourself he made you you say what's the significance of this i know that already well here's the problem even when we know that kind of thing in our minds we live and are convicted about something different let me explain how somebody says i want to marry so and so that's the guy for me and so you start praying oh lord that's the guy that i want to marry and then god shuts every door on the whole thing shuts it down completely and then you're mad at god and he's saying you don't know him like i know him he will crush you he's not made for you i know you better than you know you i made you therefore let me bring somebody to you because i know 50 years 20 years 10 years down the road what you need and what he needs he speaks to us outside of time his counsel is outside of time his direction is outside of time he made us and not we ourselves so it's so much better to stop telling god what we want and just bow down low and say whatever you wish my love i will take that because you're the one that knows better than i know he knows better than i it's so important for us to recognize this it'll bring so much peace into our lives when we'll lay our will down at the feet of jesus somebody tweeted out the other day a mortified will is what god's after not you having peace and joy and i thought wait a second you can't separate the two a mortified will removes all the obstructions for god to flow in as what he is peace and joy in your life so it says here the lord our maker he is our god look at this he switches the imagery we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand this is interesting to me because we're just talking about having our faces to the floor in response to his majesty and then he goes and your sheep too can i tell you something about sheep sheep don't know the way to go sheep don't even walk up to the shepherd and say okay will you let me know the the plan here what's gonna happen the shepherd doesn't stand in front of the sheep and say we're going to come to some heavy terrain here in a minute it's going to be uneven you know and they just look at him you know that wasn't what's he doing he looks like he's doing something they have no way to understand what he's doing because he's so much higher in intellectual ability and consciousness than they are right so here's what the sheep do do they stay wherever he is listen i don't know what he's saying but let's just stay wherever he is that's our job i know he's right there and it's good for us to take that on as our own because sometimes we're like lord tell me what's next tell me what the next step is i'm not going to have peace until you settle all this by telling me what's coming and the reality is is we do much better to be able to say this i don't know what's coming but he's right there and if we're aware of his person this is the key because if he is not the way then we've got to figure out our own but if he is the way then we can just let him be the way watchmeni said the same thing that i just said now i stole it from him but he took it and said it this way he said if christ is not life then you better start working and he said but if christ is life then you need not struggle so he says here we are the people of his pasture the sheep of his hand now look what it says next today if you hear his voice do not harden your hearts so he starts with worship and he he ends this one little section with hardening your heart which shows me that the hardening of the heart has to do with whether or not a man will worship if you refuse to lay everything down at the feet of jesus the inevitable effect is your heart will start to get hard now this is why you don't want a hard heart because if you have a hard heart the seed of the word will bounce off of you all that god does in your life and in my life and all the fruit that is yielded it comes from receiving the word but if your heart is hard it bounces right off and it can't take root and grow in our lives we need soft hearts one of the first things that i noticed in my life when i got filled with the spirit was my tenderness of heart my heart just felt so soft and literally vulnerable how many know what i'm talking about when i say this that is something that i look to the lord and i ask him for grace to maintain because i know what happens to me when my heart starts to get hard i respond differently to my wife i respond differently to my kids my outlook on life is different my gratitude starts to just wither away and as i said in the last service ingratitude causes a bad attitude i tell my daughter all the time listen if you don't have a good attitude you need to see how what you're not being grateful for a soft heart a soft heart just put your hand on your heart say jesus oh how i need a soft heart i ask you to give me a soft heart so back up to the sheep here they're so funny to me i have a couple of pictures of sheep on my phone so i look at them and think of how funny they are they're really interesting creatures you know i actually was talking with a shepherd one day and this actual shepherd said you can't herd goats because they run every they have their own will and they run any way they want and he says but sheep when they know the shepherd they come together and they they will follow like with a meekness with a gentleness without an independent will that bucks against the leader sheep are jesus's chosen image for us he actually calls himself in john 10 he calls himself the good shepherd if he's the good shepherd that would make us sheep you see i want to be meek as a sheep because that means i'm letting jesus lead me if i do not let jesus lead me by living a life of worship then i am acting not like a sheep i'm not acting like a sheep as a matter of fact i heard a guy once say he got up and grabbed the microphone he was actually a respected preacher and he gets up and then he goes i don't need to be led by the spirit anymore i already know what he wants and i thought to myself that's not cheaply that's not cheaply i want to live cheaply recently i went somewhere you know i try this is what i do for a living god called me to do this i i enjoy doing it but it is uh there's things that are good and bad about it just like anything else and i try to just keep my heart sheeply and everything just recently i went somewhere and i was scheduled to do a whole bunch of meetings in a week seven seven days full of meetings and you know when i speak the people are so kind to bless us so that we can live that's how it works for for my life it's all faith we trust god to move on people that's how we do it so we minister the word and trust god to move on to people's hearts to give to us so we can continue living that's how it how it is so i go there seven days all the meetings are there and when i land i'm tired as anything it's a place that's very far away from me it took me about 13 hours to get there and i'm super wasted time change is crazy and when i land i'm going to the hotel i'm about to check in i get a phone call and the phone call says we need to meet with you in the lobby and i said great okay let's do it she goes but i can't do it for another hour and a half or two hours i'm like man i'm tired but i'll wait she gets there we sit down i'm half awake half alive and she looks at me and she says we have to shut down all your meetings and i said uh i said what excuse me she goes all of your meetings are are going to be shut down we're not going to have you do anything and i said okay do you mind if i ask why and she says to me oh um this all was a misunderstanding and we don't know you and we don't want you to minister at our church and so i thought to myself in that very moment i'm like this is not very good because i can't fly back home i don't have the cash just to rebook a flight and fly back home i've got seven days now and i don't have anything to do and i'm here my family's at home my kids were crying when i left them they want me to stay home they want to be with daddy my wife misses me i miss my wife i just got off another trip and i'm there and they cancel everything on me and i literally had this rise up on the inside of me and i said i looked at her and i said thank you so much for being so kind about this because she had a sweet tone to her and i said you're so kind and this must have been very difficult for you to do and i said but i understand and i shook her hand and i went to the room and i had this difficulty in my heart with it i was really upset i'm thinking of myself i'm thinking of my kids you know and when i get into the room i sit on the bed angry burning on the inside i'm like oh my god what am i gonna do for the next seven flipping days here and i'm gonna have no money so i'm sitting there and the lord speaks to me and he says will you be a sheep for me and i said oh lord for you i will and i said make my heart like a sheep and the lord began to tell me it's easy to deceive yourself and think you're a sheep so i have to bring things like this to you so you can see whether or not you really are and so i sat down and i wrote this poem i wrote empty me empty me of what i think of me empty me of what i want to be even of what others think me to be even of the things i think i see even of the things that i cannot see come take all of me and cause your love for me to give exclusive love to thee my love i pray empty me i say this to say when we choose to worship and bow down he makes us sheeply and not only do we have the tenderness to respond to different things in life but we have the sensitivity to follow the shepherd and then he can lead us without obstruction and he can lead us and guide us and strengthen us and stand by us and be who he is supposed to be without any of those unnecessary obstructions i want to be a sheep and i guess the call of god that i have for each one of us in this room today is that we would live lives that are low low so low that even when people swing at us they can't hit us because we're too low to the ground many swings will come many darts will come they'll shoot out from the government they'll shoot out from a friend they'll shoot out from your workplace sometimes even the people close to you can shoot a little dart at you but if you live low if i live low we can be sheep enough to be led by the lord and tender enough to be led to the slaughter without a sound he says of jesus that he was like a sheep that went to the slaughter he didn't make he was silent and i want to be like this i want to be like my master not just shining with glory and raising the dead i want to be humble and meek jesus didn't say when he comes and he stands in front of the people he didn't say learn of me i am powerful didn't stand in front of him and he said learn of me i am most wise he stood in front of them and he goes learn of me i'm meek and i'm lowly in heart and then you'll find rest for your souls a lot of the unrest in people's lives goes back to not choosing to go low but if we'll go low man he will keep us and maybe you're listening to me right now and you're saying man that sounds great but i can't say that i've lived that way i can't say that i've been cheaply with my wife or sheeply with my husband or sheeply with my workplace or different people that god sends to me to show me things about me remember this adam hates to see himself in another let me explain what i mean the adamic nature is sinful nature and if you're walking in accordance with that adamic and adam nature when you see somebody else acting out in adam that bothers the adam and you there is nothing more imperfect than being impatient with the imperfections of others god has this strange way some of the early saints used to call it providence that he arranges all the little things in your life tailor made for you and what you need to be etched off and when you switch your mind to realize that then you find that everything that rubs you the wrong way has its origin in someone who's trying to fashion you into something that you're yet not completely that are you following me so let's bring it home your boss is nasty to you all the time god put him there why because he wants to know if you'll be a sheep eric you don't know my husband go low and his swings will go over your head am i trying to say that if you go low god will remove your boss from you or give you another wife [Laughter] that's wrong that's not how it works maybe you listen to me now and you say i have not been this way or can i tell you some really really amazing news the scripture tells us that jesus the good shepherd leaves every one of the other sheep to find one that has got distracted isn't that amazing he loves you so much that even if you have strayed from your sheeply way he will come and find you i once talked with a woman who was a shepherd for 11 years she watched over sheep and she said that when sheep are in the rain they get wet and their coats become super heavy and many times they fall over now i didn't know this about sheep but she would know because she was with them for 11 years she said when a sheep falls down he cannot get up on his own isn't that just like you that's just like me and you know what she goes on to say this is even this is even this is even better she says once the sheep has fallen and he realizes that he can't get up she said if they stay there for a little while they quickly give up on life she says you know this because when you find them they're still breathing but they close their eyes and they pretend like they're just waiting for death to come and claim them [Music] sometimes she says you gotta smack them just to recognize that they're you're gonna be okay because they're just like forget it i'm waiting i'm gonna die there's nothing i can do here isn't that just like you isn't that just like you have you ever made a mistake and you thought there is just no hope for me jesus it's over why even try anymore anybody have you ever gotten to that point where you just want to give up on life listen to what she says next this is the best part she says you have to grab him the sheep you gotta turn him over but she says don't put him down on his legs because he doesn't have any blood in his legs he'll fall over immediately again she says what you have to do is you gotta grab him and then you gotta turn him over and you gotta hold him to your chest tightly and hold him until the blood returns to him isn't that just like jesus when you fail you feel it's over he doesn't even you know why would you even want me what does he do he picks you up he turns you over he lays you upon his chest and he says my little lamb you are always needing me and i am always here and he holds you dear until the blood returns to you and then once the blood returns she says she would drop them and they'd run off like nothing ever happened isn't that just like jesus why am i bringing this up i think these things are intimately connected as a matter of fact i see it right here in the scriptures oh come let us worship and bow down let's kneel before the lord our god our maker for he is our god and we are the people of his pasture in the sheep of his hand so today if you hear his voice don't harden your heart come and worship and bow down here's my call for you today and i'm not an altar call guy i mean i've done altar calls before but i'm not really that way because i grew up in the church and i responded to altar calls and then tuesday i was doing the same thing again altar calls are good in some ways but for me i find there's something even better than that it's for you to make a decision in your heart that for the rest of your life starting with tomorrow you're going to or even this afternoon even after we leave here that you're going to be somebody who says here's my entire life and being i lay it all down at your feet here's my opinions about the whole thing here's my need to understand i lay it all down at your feet as a matter of fact this is what we see in romans chapter 12 where paul says this is the only reasonable act of worship that there is some translation say spiritual act of worship when you look at the word it actually means a reason this is the only thing that makes sense what laying your body down on the altar as a holy sacrifice a living and holy sacrifice to god living means it's constantly happening and holy sacrifice means it's dedicated to god because in the old testament when something was dedicated to god the moment it was dedicated it was holy so in the same way you choosing to say here's my entire life i lay everything down on the altar not just an arm on the altar not just an arm and a leg on the altar the entire body on the altar this is the only thing that makes sense makes sense to what makes sense to the one from whom all things are the one to whom all things are and the one through whom all things are the one that is owed nothing by men the one who loves us for no reason but we love him for many i encourage you that today you let the word go into your heart and you let it change the way you live you say eric i already live this way well praise god this is gas on your fire eric i already lived this way well you're probably more happy about this than anybody else but if you don't live this way i'm telling you you have a lot of unnecessary in your life i'll talk to you just as as just a fellow flawed sinful human being that needs jesus every day you have a lot of unnecessary things going on in your life if you do not bow low and give him everything and i'll close with the very same statement that i opened with if you will live bowed down everything will go over your head god bless you [Music] guys

Channel: SOZO NW

Views: 14,273

Rating: 4.9373775 out of 5

Keywords: #SozoChurchBelfair, EricGilmour, #bible, the bible, bible, #sozonight, bible stories, eric gilmour, Intimacy with jesus, love jesus, jesus christ, holy spirit, jesus

Id: ezHWUCf6G6s

Length: 35min 46sec (2146 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 24 2020