Matthew 22:37-39 - "Growing in Love for God"

[Music] [Applause] [Music] hi guys it's good to be with you do me a favor you can turn to Matthew chapter 22 at the chapter 22 many of us have come to the realization and most of us and there I say all of us sooner or later will realize that what we're searching for is contentment we may be looking for contentment and all sorts of experience all sorts of places all sorts of relationship all of us are looking for contentment God wants you to discover where you can experience true contentment where you can find true contentment and I want you to appreciate that this conflict the culture that we live in the message of the culture is that you can find true contentment by discovering it inside yourself if you find out your true self and you discover who your true self is that as long as you are true to yourself you will find contentment the culture is telling you that the mundane experience of life is not enough that you need some epic experience and that if you just have enough epic experiences that you can put all over your social media feed then you will find true contentment the culture around you is telling you that the traditions and the boundaries and the religion that would set any type of limitation on you is to be abandoned that if you want to find true contentment disregard the tradition disregard the boundaries disregard religion the culture around you is telling you that if you can just experience enough experience you're gonna find true contentment the culture is telling you that you don't need the religion of the Bible you don't need the religion of God as the judeo-christian idea that there is a higher form of spirituality out there and that if you experience this spirituality apart from God or without God you're going to find true contentment that message might seem like a very 2019 message but that message is as old as time itself that is the same message that the enemy of men's souls in the Garden of Eden communicates to Adam and Eve that real contentment is going to be found by neglecting God real contentment is going to be found by rejecting God if you really want to be happy don't listen to God and wouldn't it be ironic would it be profound if God took all of the commandments of his great redemptive meta-narrative redemptive plan and distilled it down to its essence and he offered us this essence of how to experience contentment as what we know as the great Commandments when Jesus asked he's being tested by an expert in the commandments of God which is the greatest commandment and the hope of this expert is that no matter what Jesus says that they can then say look he neglected this important thing or he rejected to say that important thing therefore you shouldn't follow Jesus and it's in that context that we find ourselves in Matthew 22 we see at verse 37 that jesus replied you shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart all of your mind all of your soul that we are to love God with all that we are this is the greatest commandment and the second commandment which Jesus volunteered is that you will love your neighbor as you love yourself and then Jesus in verse 40 says on these two commands hang all of the law and the prophets everything that God had revealed to mankind if it was distilled to its essence would be this love God supremely and love others as you love yourself what if everything that we were looking for in contentment was actually to be experienced and discovered in this simple profound revolutionary radical idea I mean it sounds so simple and yet most of us have discovered how difficult it is why is it so difficult well there's so many things that we could say our youngest son gave me a five-year journal and in this five-year journal you answer a question every day and then you can compare your answers over a course of five years and the question that I was wrestling with this week was this what are you running from that's a profound question I think many of us most of us dare I say all of us I found ourselves running from something and while we are running from might be incredibly illuminating we may be running from parents we may be running from a spouse we may be running from the reality of what is going on in our children's lives we may be running from problems at work we may be running from problems at school running from unhealthy friendship running from the sense of responsive there are countless but I think what humanity has been running from and what humanity continues to try to run from without even consciously regarding this is the world our flesh and the enemy of men's souls the world is trying to tell you that your contentment is going to be in stings experiences other people your flesh is telling you that you can find contentment in the material and the enemy of men's souls is trying to tell you that God's trying to withhold something good for me that if you reject God you're gonna find what you're really looking for and none of it ever satisfies apart from God it is a lie from the pit of hell what we need to discover here is true contentment from the love of God this is what we want to talk about today the love of God and really the object that God has in store for us is that we would discover how to grow in love for God how to grow in love for God so we spent four weeks we're spending four weeks to talk about loving God and loving neighbors as values last week we talked about biblical community this week we're talking about growing in love for God for the next two weeks we'll talk about growing in love for neighbors within the community of faith neighbors outside of the community of faith all with the intent that we would experience these values of loving God and loving neighbors as part of who we are we would appropriate these values and appreciate them so the first key for us to be able to do this is to remember who God is to remember who God is so as Jesus responds this question which is the greatest commandment what we might expect is that he would be quoting from the Ten Commandments and you know these are the ones that were written with God's very own hand you would think that would be the fallback place where you'd look for this is probably one of the best one of the greatest if not the greatest and yet Jesus doesn't quote from Exodus 20 he doesn't quote one of the ten commend the commandment that he gives us is from Deuteronomy 6:4 and five and so I think it's really helpful for us to understand the context of Deuteronomy as a matter of fact Jesus quotes the book of Deuteronomy more than any other old test book sowhat's understand the context because it'll be helpful for us to move forward Moses has gathered God's people it is his swan song he has led them now out of Egypt through the wilderness to the edge of the Promised Land for 40 years he is going to now prepare them to enter into the Promised Land it wasn't simply to experience crossing over the Jordan River he's preparing them spiritually he's preparing them emotionally he's preparing them physically to experience all the blessing that God intended for them to know and he starts off by reminding them of all that God has done this is the first key idea we need to remember what God has done and so Moses has this very personal experience with God that he could point to he's had this experience of God calling him from a burning bush he has this experience of God saying to him hey removed the sandals the ground that you're standing on his holy ground he has this experience where God is going to use him to advance God's interests and Moses feels totally inadequate totally ill-equipped totally unprepared for what God is calling him to do and Moses comment is hey send my brother he's a smooth talker guys now I'm using you if you want your bro to come alongside I'm cool with that but I'm using you and he wants to use you and Moses rather than focusing on what God did personally in his life although this is critically important Moses focuses on their collective experience he talks about God gathering his people and that he had heard their cry that they were enslaved in Egypt he knows their hardship he isn't ignorant he isn't uncompassionate he isn't uninterested he's heard their crime and he's urging them this was a people that God had called of all the peoples on the earth the Jewish people were not the mightiest of people they were not the strongest of people yes they were the best-looking of course God God declares him I chose you because you were the least you were nothing the reason I chose you was to show how amazing I am and he takes this group of people and he sets them apart to himself he sanctifies them he takes them he delivers them from their bondage in Egypt through the plagues as the parting of the Red Sea then provides water from Iraq provides manna from heaven they go 40 years in this same pair of sandals every parent here wishes they could find a pair of sandals that their kids could wear for 40 years hallelujah their enemies who oppose them their enemies who attack them the enemies who seek to keep them from entering the promised land God gives them victory he protects them he preserves them this is how Moses is reminding them of all that God has done and Christ we are recipients of greater blessings from God in Christ we're recipients of greater blessing from God you have been chosen by God in Christ when you chose to receive Christ to become part of the family of God maybe some of your friends were like whoa didn't see that coming maybe some of your family members like whoa here's a surprise God wasn't surprised God didn't say whoa didn't see that coming he chose you God has set you apart he recognizes that you are in this world and yet you are set apart to him he has redeemed you not from the blood of a Passover lamb but from the precious blood of his son he has purchased you to himself he doesn't simply cause you to enter into a promised land a land that is full of mature blessing he has called you into a greater promise you have the promise of eternal life now eternal life doesn't just speak of a duration eternal life is speaking of life with God it is a nature of life it is a quality of life and we take this for granted you in Christ and only because of Christ and only because of what Jesus does and what he has done have the opportunity to have life with the true and living God simply through faith in Him when the Apostle John writes his first letter first John chapter 2 verse 25 he says this is the promise of all God's promises this one was the promise the greatest promise imaginable life with God in this life and the life which is to come that you have been given forgiven of all of your sin I know there's some of you here that you you you look at your life and and you've been a good kid and you've been a good adolescent and you've been a good adult and you can't even think of anything bad that you've ever done like once you were going to steal a pack of juicy fruit from the store but since it wasn't sugar-free you didn't and and you just been good and you can't even imagine what God's forgiven you and that's because we tend to look at goodness from a very earthly level rather than recognizing all of the thoughts as well as the behaviors the things that we've done that we shouldn't have done the things that we neglected to do that we should have done when we begin to have a perspective from God's perspective and realize that we have offended and all holy God we begin to have a greater appreciation for this life that God has given us simply because of Jesus and it is not until we remember what God has done and what God has done through the person of Christ and it is not until we begin to understand that all genuine love for God flows from appropriating and appreciating God's love for you all genuine love for God flows from appropriating and appreciating God's love for you so first John chapter 4 verse 19 John reminds us that we love God because He first loved us in other words that our response to God's love is simply reasonable because we have discovered how much he loves us in Christ God displace his greatest love imaginable he has given his only son there's nothing better that he could give us than Jesus he's given us the best he's given humanity the best he's given you his best Jesus voluntarily gives His life so that you and God can be reconciled because our sin keeps us separated from God so through Christ forgiveness is available so you can have a relationship with God and because all of us deserve God's judgment in understanding what we have now in God's love we should simply respond with love towards God amen it's simply the process of maturing spiritual maturity in other words if you're a parent there comes a time where you hope your children will appreciate the sacrifice that you've made that you hope that they appreciate the love that they've shown that you hope that when you say hey can you help me they don't say well what's in it for me it's like of course I'll help you what would you like me to do that is a process some of you are still waiting for that process I understand but similar when we think about all that God has done for us contemplate this idea with me for a moment just imagine writing God a love letter I mean some of us like hey I didn't even do that for my spouse like a card you know I just go to the store I find something on the card that looks like really good words and I just put my name to it I'm good but you just think about this for a moment if you were going to write God a love note and you weren't going to type it up you're going to actually write it with pen and paper preferably a fountain pen because all of the disciples except for Judis used a fountain pen do you just use the ballpoint but that's neither I mean if you were gonna put pen to paper and how big a piece of paper would just start with would you grab a one by one post-it know maybe one of those two by two maybe yeah eight-and-a-half by eleven would you write a book and you started to think about if you started off just to say god this is what you've done in my life I am so grateful for all these things that you've done and you started to contemplate what God's done and who he is and you started to tell him how you feel and that feeling part it's strange because I think sometimes we can make our spiritual life a head experience a thinking we're supposed to love God with our mind that our thoughts are to be aligned with God yes and we're supposed to love God as a spiritual experience we love God with soul with spirit but we love God with heart I think a lot of us lose sight at times of the heart aspect we go through this life and we just say I love you God but there there's an absence of feeling love is more than an emotion it is an act of the will but shouldn't it be characterized by feeling shouldn't there be that that sense as you contemplate God that you feel feeling thinking the awakening of our spirit all begins with remembering what God has done remembering what God has done the second way that we grow in our love for God is remembering who God is remembering who God is so Moses begins and he has told them about all that God has done for them he's reminding them and now he bridges what he's done to who God is we see this at verse 4 ma yisrael adonai elohenu adonai a hog you know what that says because the translations on the screen now here o Israel the Lord our God the Lord is one you shall love the Lord your God with okay so we take what Jesus said we take what Moses said we are to love God with all of our heart all of our emotion all of our mind all of our soul spirit all of our strength and the physical the body realm all of those areas of our life are to be submitted to God and it starts off with Moses clearly identifying who God is he says here the idea is he's calling for them to give their attention he's saying listen to this of all the things that I'm telling you and all the things that I'm reminding you of and all the things that I'm challenging you to do it flows from this here listen don't miss this get off your phone listen because your life depends on it here Sh'ma Oh Israel Israel has an immediate context he's talking to the Jewish people but there's also this understanding the term Israel means governed by God all of God's people all who would be governed by God listen the Lord there's many names that God is given in the Old Testament that God is known by that God is called by but the Lord is the Tetra Garman we we see it as pronounced as Jehovah or Yahweh it speaks uniquely of his covenant relationship with his people God has made a promise to his people and God is faithful to all of his promises he will be faithful you do not want to jump ship thinking that there's a better boat out there here o Israel the Lord our God he doesn't say the Lord your God he's not saying the Lord my God he's saying the Lord our God that the relationship with God is personal but it has to be experienced as part of a community you cannot understand God properly what he has done unique to yourself because you need other people's perspective other people's perspective and experience I've been a pastor for 30 years I got people in my neighborhood group who are seeing things in the scripture that I don't see cuz I am blind to my blind spots and I come into a gathering with my own perspective bias I need people around me who are different than me an authentic relationship with me to speak and what God has done and who God is from their experience the Lord our God the Lord is one here it's this compound unity the Hebrew word God it speaks of this speaking of the triune God we have one God Christians don't worship three gods like Jews we are the only monotheistic people on the globe we have one God who is manifest in three persons manifest as God the Father manifests as God the Son manifests as God the Holy Spirit and because there is one God one true and living God everything else that claims to be a god is a false God amen so anything else that is telling you that this is going to be your source of origins this is going to be your source of contentment this is going to be your source of satisfaction apart from God in lieu of God as they claim better alternative to God is a lie that's what Moses is saying you're gonna come into a land and you're gonna be tempted to think that there is something else that has provided for you that there is a better way that there's some better offer he's saying don't buy into the trap there is one God and after their understanding of what God has done being reminded their understanding of who God is then Moses is able to say you love the Lord your God with everything that you are now through Christ we better understand who God is we better understand who God is through Christ so trying to figure out who God is it's challenging especially approaching simply from the Old Testament part of that is because God is spirit so we have an understanding of these attributes of God for example God is holy amen God is just here's one God is awesome now we we tend to lose sight of what awesome is because of the culture that we live in we live in Southern California everything is awesome in and out is awesome sunset at the beach is awesome the waves were awesome right my dog is awesome everything is awesome the idea of awesome from a biblical perspective or wonderful is that something is beyond words to describe marvelous wonderful awesome these are attributes of God that God is love that God is patient long-suffering compassionate gracious forgiving all of these attributes of God are revealed in the Old Testament but it's somewhat nebulous to us because God is spirit in the New Testament God takes on flesh we read in John's Gospel that in the beginning was the word and the Word was with God speaking of Jesus and then at verse 14 of chapter one and the word became flesh and he dwelt among us that Jesus came into our world so that we could understand God not to be a perfect sacrifice once and for all but that we could understand God that we could understand what God desires of us what we could hunt that we could understand what God requires of us now all genuine love for God flows from appropriating and appreciating who God is all genuine love for God flows from appropriating and appreciating who God is so God created you in His image there is an abundant amount of evidence that we can talk about how we know God is involved in our origins although I don't have time to get into that this morning but I'd be happy to talk with anybody that's questioned about that the problem is our tendency is to create God in our image in other words if there's something about God that doesn't kind of fit into your jam you just say well my God wouldn't do that well then you're creating God in your image the the key is to understand who God of the Bible who the true and living God is and then to surrender our will under his authority not to create God that fits into our lifestyle are we okay with that that's like a totally underwhelming response um let me just tee this up one more time are we okay with that yeah so how do you discover who God is so some of the ways that have been tried and true through time that continue to speak into our lives and those who are searching and seeking Bible learning you cannot know who God is apart from his revelation so again there is abundant evidence that we know why the Bible is inspired by God not penned by men why we know that the Bible hasn't been changed to the centuries and I'd be happy if you're a skeptic if you're a critic if you're concerned about how do I know the Bible is really from God be happy to answer those questions we're not there's abundant evidence but assuming that we understand that the Bible is God's inspired love letter to you you cannot know him apart from it so if you know more about your sports team if you know more about craft beer if you know more about your career all those things might be well and good but if they're hindering you from knowing God you need to engage in Bible learning you need to engage in in prayer you can't know God apart from prayer and what I would suggest is in our culture we're getting really uncomfortable with doing human relationship we've become increasingly more comfortable staring at our phones right you walk into an elevator everybody's looking at their phone god forbid someone would talk you know hey how you doing oh my gosh stranger danger we as a culture don't know how to do relation we don't know how to engage people we don't know how to ask about their story we don't know how to share our story is it any wonder that that attitude is pervasive and in regard to our relationship with God hey isn't there an app for how I can do my relationship with God just show me a shortcut and God says no we're gonna spend time together and the fact that we are loath to get away from our phone that we won't unplug from our monitors our tablets our social media feed and spend time quietly hearing from God speaking with God contemplating God keeps us from knowing God you need to create relationship with other followers of Christ to share their experience to share your experience to inspire to encourage to learn from one another hey if the only perspective that I have is my own and from people just like me I'm gonna get a very skewed perspective on who God is and it's very subtle we don't even realize how subtle and pervasive this is the first time I went to Nairobi in Kenya it was November I collect nativities to the dismay of all my family members you know when all these things come out of the holiday but here I was and at the store and there was this nativity set and everywhere that I've traveled throughout the globe the nativity characters all look like the place where you are and Here I am in Nairobi I'm go this is so cool African Americans I'm like I'm an idiot they're Africans all right it's like we don't recognize how our bias and and our perspective limits the God of the universe we need other people with different perspectives to share with us to properly understand who God is know if we understand who God is and we understand what God has done then would it be reasonable to suggest that with that understanding we get why Jesus would remind us of what Moses said this is the most important thing worship God with all that you are worship God with your life that your thoughts should be submitted to God that your emotions should be submitted to God that your body should be submitted to God that your spirit your soul should be submitted to God worship is more than singing in church it's life amen and so when Moses says this and Jesus reminds us that this is the greatest commandment he's not just simply saying look this is how you need to change your behavior this is how you need to become a more moral person this is how we can advance this whole religion idea which is saying to us is this is how you experience the contentment that you're searching for by making God the master passion of your life now here the challenge along the way the world sucks us into its gravitational foot and pull along the way our flesh is thinking that yes I can satisfy my greatest desires by satisfying the urges of my flesh whether it's outside of God's boundaries or not and the enemy of men's souls keeps whispering God's not enough you want to be the one in control you want to be the one who decides what's right what's wrong what's good what's bad what you want to do and not amen this is the struggle for those of us who would call ourselves followers of Christ the the light is come on we've discovered this truth and depending on your experience not your parents experience not someone else's experience but your experience this is either ringing as true or it just sounds like a fairy tale like sure there's gonna be a Pegasus in my garage that would be cool like I don't care if it's black or white Pegasus I'll take either one we're not talking fairy tales we're talking truth now this idea about worshiping God with all that we are what's the challenge the challenge is we tend to drift from God and it's subtle that's the third idea that we need to see here remember your first love remember what God has done remember who God is then remember your first love so in the last book of the scriptures the last book of the New Testament the book of Revelation by the way it's revelation singular it's the revelation of Jesus Christ it's not revelation so we want to make sure we all get that idea revelation in chapters 2 and 3 Jesus pens letters to seven actual churches that were there and what would be modern-day Turkey you can see the ruins of those churches to this day they are seven actual churches they also represent seven of the different works that God was doing through the New Testament it also they also tend to represent different stages and an individual believers life most of us are not going to have this experience with God that looks like a hockey stick on a graph that you're just going straight up most of us there's some herbs and some flows there's some mountaintop moments some valleys Plains there's a sense of being intimately close and for many of us a sense of drifting away and trying to find our way back and in that we come to the second chapter of Revelation and Jesus pens a note to the church at Ephesus he described himself as walking in their midst he is aware of what is going on in their hearts in their lives and the first three chapter or first three verses he commends them he commends them for three attributes that are good and important and eärnur praiseworthy and I think many of us here would see these things going on in her own lives and we would receive this commendation this well-done attaboy or at a girl as the case may be he commends them for their sound doctrine he commends them for their good works in other words they knew the Word of God they knew was false teaching heresy and they rejected they knew what truth was and they wanted to embrace it they were known for good works and their community people would say yeah that church at Ephesus man they've done a lot of good in this community those folks are ok and they were known for persevering in the sense that in the greco-roman world where there would be all of the this pull to leave the true and living God and like if you really want what's acceptable around the culture generally then worship the Greek gods worse if the Roman gods do like the Greeks do like the Romans that's where you're really gonna find contentment and they continued they continued in their love for the true and living God although that that love at times of ups and downs and he commends them for that and they're very commendable thoughts very commendable deeds very commendable attitudes and actions and then Jesus says these words that are recorded at verse 4 of Revelation 2 nevertheless I have this against you I mean you just imagine you know kind of like the disciples in the upper room with Jesus he says to them one of you is gonna betray me they don't all point to Judas its Judas isn't it I knew it what do they say they say is it I Lord is this me you're trying to to give me a wake-up call he says nevertheless I I have this against you what we'd want to say what what is it that you have against me Lord if you've got something against me I mean if my wife has something against me I want to hear if my sons have something against me I want to hear if somebody I work with uh something against me I want to hear if you have something against me I want to hear not right now if wait till afterwards but I want to hear can you imagine if Jesus has something against you it's like there's a part of me I don't want to hear all right like this this could be more than I'm prepared to hear right now but there's another part like if you've got something against me I need to hear this and then he drops the bombshell he says you lost your first love he's not talking about a chronology he's not talking about like when you were crushing on somebody in junior high he's turned about priority he's saying there was a time in your life when I was the master passion of your life that waking up early to pray that waking up to read the Bible staying up that you wanted to learn of me that you thought about me as the day was going on going to Bible study wasn't a burden it was a opportunity you approach with excitement going to church oh no I gotta go to church this I met I can't wait to worship God and meet with God no I don't care what anybody else is doing man I am so excited I want to serve God it's not like well yeah I'm working hard but man I want to serve God because I'm giving all my best 9 to 5 I I need to give my best to God but I want to give because I know that advancing God's kingdom is important I don't want to share my faith because I'm excited about God I mean whatever you're excited about you want to share I mean if we live in a culture that's like that you know somebody's a bumper sticker you know Mike my kid was inmate of the month at Folsom looks like you got any good news you want to share it and you remember men there's that time there's that time in your life and that you were so excited about God I come from a movement that is associated with the 60s and 70s the last great revival in this country the Jesus Movement in the Calvary Chapel was the birthplace of that man you know you have all these hippies driving their VW bus you know with the roof on this VW you know camper it has all these Jesus stickers all over the place and there's a reason for that the seats are broken they go back you look up you see all these figures is Jesus everything like what are you some sort of Jesus we guess and then you go through life and you get sucked into the establishment you get sucked into the world you start to think that yeah man real contentment is going to be having a house and real contentment is going to be this bigger shinier car or thing and real contentment if I really want to be happy I I need a marriage and if I really want to be happy and eat out of this marriage and if I really want to be happy I need three kids one of each if I really want to be happy it's always always thinking that yeah there's something better than God and it's not because God has changed he's the same yesterday today and forever problem is that we neglected him he didn't go anywhere we drifted you know when I was a kid growing up I sent my summers at Santa Monica read I'm probably the only person that actually was born in Los Angeles lived there you know Southern California my whole life you know I go to the beach in the summer that's you know you're looking at me it's not surprising like surf God I believe it Jews don't surf my people I don't know but we know we'd hang out the beach and then you get involved in a rip current and you look up and all the lifeguard towers are identical right and so at the distance you don't see the number you assume you're there it's you look at the pier or some other reference point you raise oh my gosh I've drifted and you keep either going in the drift and and you're going to go and experience great hardship or you're gonna recognize that you've drifted and do something Jesus gives us the prescription he he gives us this remedy at verse five take out a look with me here remember therefore from where you've fallen repent and do the first works or else I will come to you quickly and remove your lampstand from its place unless you repent he's saying remember so remember when we were intimate remember when we were in close proximity remember when you you were so close to me that you could feel my heartbeat that you could hear my still small voice and my promises were comforting to you and my death and resurrection was hope to you that I was enough for you that you were satisfied in content remember repent recognize that you've drifted recognize that you're going adrift recognize who God is recognize what's going in your heart and change direction and go back to God and redo do those first works do the things that you were doing when you were close do the things that you need to do to stay close why because if you don't he's going to remove his presence we're not talking about losing your salvation I believe that if you are saved truly say received always but you can't lose your salvation but there's an experience with God when you're walking close with God just describes it as abiding he says in John 15 this is all you need to do I'm doing everything on my end there's one thing you need to do abide dwell with me stay connected to me hang with me dwell with me remain with me and you're gonna be beautiful it describes us like this incredible cluster of grapes when the Jews came into the Promised Land they scouted out the land man they found this cluster of grapes they refer to the places as sure meaning cluster this cluster of grapes was so big that two guys had to carry it on a pole on their shoulders that's a big old cluster of grapes they're not so on that at the supermarket where I go that's how you want your life to look like this beautiful fruitful cluster and as soon as you start to drift from him what you start to look like is a raisin yeah and you see the the thing is when the you look in the mirror and you're looking at the outside and like you are beautiful I love you you love yourself I love myself and therefore it's gonna be a beautiful day and you think about everything in the outward appearance and in sight you are shriveling up and dying in the thinking that the answer is you need to run from something you need to escape something you need to add someone something because you recognize that you are a raisin and the ants are simply reconnecting with Christ there is no other way that you are going to discover contentment you are going to destroy your life you are going to destroy the lives of people that you care about it's just time to stop if we don't have time for God and we don't have time for others we have to recognize there's things going on in our life that are obscuring God he needs to be the master passion again of our lives so that everything can land in order you cannot expect to visit God occasionally and to experience this unity that you're yearning for everything else everything else needs to be filtered through this reality if you don't have time for God and you don't have time for others what in your life needs to change let's pray lord I pray that we would take to heart you're urging us to return to you that we would remember or create those times of intimacy that we'd repent that we redo Lord that you Lord could be the master passion of our lives that we would remember all you've done in our lives what you're doing we would remember who you really are that you're God and we're not and Lord we would surrender to you so that we might experience what we're really longing for would you change our affections would you confront us Lord by your spirit correct us Lord and woo us back to you if you're here today and you've never received Christ he's standing at the door he's knocking and waiting for you to answer and he's promised that if you will surrender your will to him that he will give you life with him from this day forward into eternity that you'll have forgiveness of your sin that separates you from God and that you'll begin to discover the source of true contentment just ask him now and for the many of us who have already made that decision but are in a season where we've drifted Lord would you urge us to change our thinking about you and our thinking about ourselves that we would get things properly aligned we asked us now in Jesus name Amen [Music] you

Channel: Calvary Nexus

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Keywords: Jesus, God, Gospel, Bible, Matthew, Love, Blessing, Neighbors, Response, Remembering, Understanding, Repent

Id: Nvd-ufOHZpc

Length: 50min 32sec (3032 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 13 2019