You are called to be a carrier of His presence, not just a recipient of it. Start this week by identifying the darkest area of your life and asking the Holy Spirit to fill you with boldness and peace. Trust that His power is sufficient to transform your environment when you rely on Him rather than your own strength.
Doctor David John Phillips.
Yeah.
That that never happened. Maybe 1 day, but not yet. I am so thankful to get to be your pastor. My name is David John Phillips. I have the joy and honor of being the pastor here.
There's no place that I'd rather be. There's nothing that I'd rather be doing. It's exactly where God has me, and I'm thankful that you chose to to spend your Sunday morning here with us. If this is your first time or you've been coming for a while, I guarantee you're gonna encounter the presence of God, if you haven't already, the power of God and the love of God in such a way that, man, you'll you'll be forced into the "valley of decision" where you have to choose, do I go after him with all my heart or do I stay the same? And, I'm happy to put you there.
I really am. When you encounter Jesus and you encounter his love and his presence, I mean, there's no other place to be. And, I mean, those that would choose not him for whatever reason, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. There's a lot of people that choose not God because they're offended at him, because they blame him for what he didn't do.
The bible says the enemy comes to "steal, kill, and destroy", But but I have come. Jesus was speaking that you may have life and life more abundantly. The enemy whispers, why would God do that? Why would why would this happen? Why would that happen?
I just You know, the Bible says you can have peace that passes understanding. The only way to have peace that passes understanding is to give up your need to understand and trust him even when you don't understand. Because he's a good God, and he's got a much bigger brain than you do. As a matter of fact, Hebrews-11:3 says, by faith we understand. So on the other side of hearing him, believing, and obeying him even when you don't understand, on the other side of obedience comes deeper understanding.
So maybe your lack of *understanding* has been because you've been holding on to under to trying to understand before you obey. Amen? O me? If that's o me, it's okay. God loves you enough to tell you that so that you can begin to see his character nature.
He's a good God. He knows everything. He knows exactly what you need. And the only way that you're gonna please him is by faith, by obedience even when you don't see it. Faith lives by what he says over what we see.
You can't live by faith and see everything too. You have to live by faith as I'm trusting what you say over what I see, and then understanding comes on the other side of that. Does that make sense? So, man, I I'm I'm gonna trust him even when I don't understand. And the the beautiful part of that is as I'm walking in greater and greater levels of obedience because of my trust in him, I'm walking in greater and greater understanding too.
And it's so fun. This was not a part of the message. Does this encourage anybody? Was this for somebody? Is this for yeah.
Praise the Lord. Good. I'm glad. For the rest of you, it's okay. Okay.
*Revival* is happening, guys. And if you don't see it, it might be because you're not participating in it. But revival is happening, and you're invited. It really is. I got a call this past week from Daniel Salim, our our guy that we're working with in Pakistan.
I mean, want you to understand, I keep saying 55,000. It's really probably more like 60 or 65. I mean, it's growing, but at least 55,000 people now are being discipled weekly in 3 unreached people groups in over 1,600 villages throughout Pakistan when it was just 1 person asking for the gospel a little over 4 and a half years ago. And and guys, real church was we we pioneered that with the Lord.
Yeah. That's amazing. I got I talked
to to to Daniel this past week, and he goes, hey, brother, I just want you to know, you know, our leader, Deva, he's excited. We we've got some calls from a whole another, not a whole another. I think that's a Louisiana thing. Anyway, a whole another a whole another area of Pakistan, an unreached district that's that's asking us to go, and and so, you know, this guy who was an unbeliever 4 and a half years ago, is ready to to go as a missionary to a new unreached people group to to share the gospel with in Pakistan, that we've been discipling. Guys.
Hallelujah. That's a big deal. Let's praise the Lord. Thank you, Jesus. You like, what you honor multiplies.
If this is little
to you, then what is big? Do you know? I mean, this is a big deal. Let me let me share some more stuff. This past week this past week, what's the updated count, Robbie?
17. 17 people have been "born again" outside of Sunday morning this past week, just by people going out. I mean, that's amazing. Death to life. Just just people and that's that's only counting Belong outreach.
There are people living out loud for Jesus in their daily life and leading people to Christ in Publix and Winn Dixie, at the gas stations. We have a testimony page for those that are members of of of Real Church. If you read the testimony page, it's astounding. Every day, there's there's testimonies of people being healed out in Pinellas County. Testimonies of people being born again.
I'm telling you guys, if you don't realize it's revival, you need to start participating. Revival is the church being revived to life. And when the church is revived to life, the lost are sought after and found. People start giving their life to Jesus as a product of dead dead Christians who are sitting on their butts, being revived to life, standing up, and starting to live out loud the gospel.
It's fun. I mean, I'm telling you, I'm having a blast. I'm having the time of my life. Other pastors, you know, they'll they'll call me, they'll be like, how's your church doing? I'm like, man, God's moving.
They're like, how are you really doing? I'm like, I'm really having the time of my life. I mean, it's amazing. Sure. There's relational stuff that happens, but you guys heard the message last week.
It's called the crucible. The crucible is is what God uses. The crucible of relationships is what God uses to develop leaders. And if you've given your life to Jesus, no matter how you saw yourself, he sees you as a leader because you're called to be a disciple maker, and you can't make disciples without leading people. Amen?
Amen. So that's you. And man, if you come to this church, God is going to develop you into the leader He's called you to be in every single way. And, man, I'm I'm being developed. The leaders here are being developed, and you're welcome to join the party.
I promise you're gonna step into revival. Amen? Amen. Alright. So we're we're we're gonna actually get into the message today.
Is that me? Yeah. It is me? Alright. Well, I'll pick up a handheld mic if it happens again, But praise the Lord.
Okay. So we're gonna get into the message today. It's called, we're in a series. Alright. I'm gonna pick up a handheld mic.
Here we go. Testing 1, 2. Give me just a second. Alright. Good to go.
Can you hear me? Alright. We're in a series titled, the glory of living. This is part 2 of the series. Last week was kind of like an interlude, intermission thing.
But I would encourage you to go back and listen to part 1 of the series and the prequel, which the prequel was the Glorious Church. Then part 1 of the series is titled The Glory of Living. You can find it on our podcast, on Spotify, or on Apple Podcasts. All you gotta do is search Real Church Clearwater when you pull that up on your iPhone or on your Android or whatever you use. I would encourage you to go back and listen to it.
Don't listen to it to see how good I speak or how it makes you feel. It's not about me. Listen to it to hear the word of the Lord. Get in your word. Apply it to your life.
It's very important. This series builds on 1 another. Okay? Each each message builds on itself. And you can take the message as a stand alone.
There's some principles in it. Make sense? Now, today, I'm excited. It's gonna be a little shorter message and a little longer response time. So it's gonna be beautiful.
You ready? Okay. So just as a reminder, glory. What is glory? Glory is God putting who he is and what he does on display for all to see.
All of creation exists to manifest the glory of God. Everything exists to manifest its glory that God put inside of it. And when it matures and manifests its glory, it's revealing a kind of the nature of God. When you see a bird fly, when you see a fish swim, when you see a tree giving shade or producing fruit, and it's beautiful and glorious, you say, wow. When you see the sunset, people drive from all over fly and drive all over to come to Clearwater Beach to see the sunset.
Why? Because it's glorious. It's revealing an aspect of the creator, of his nature. So if all of creation is God's artwork, God is the artist. And that would mean that you are his masterpiece.
Because you were created in his image to reveal his glory. Everything else was created to reveal aspects of his glory, but you're created in his image to reveal the character and nature of God. Amen? Amen. Okay.
So pull up that picture. That 1, is that glorious? No. It's repulsive. It's nasty.
It's yucky. It's a bird that is has no feathers. It's a baby, can't see. I mean, to the untrained eye, you don't know what it's gonna become. You're like, get that thing away from me.
But everything that it needs to manifest its full glory and bring glory to the creator is already inside of it and was inside of it at conception. Amen? Amen. All of the glory is inside of there. And when it fully matures, pull up the next picture, it's a toucan.
Wow. It's beautiful. People travel all over the world to go and see a toucan in its natural habitat and take pictures of it, "bird watching" and stuff. Or they or they go and see a toucan in the in the zoo, and they they look at it and they're like, wow. It's beautiful and amazing.
What does it need to go from birth to fully manifesting the glory that God's put inside of it? It needs 3 things. It it needs the right environment, it needs nourishment, and it needs time. Amen? Amen.
When you are born again, you are like the "baby toucan". You're an infant spiritually. And God has put everything you need inside of you to manifest the glory that he's created you to manifest. But you need the proper environment, you need nourishment, and you need time. Just like the toucan, if you take yourself out of the proper environment, if the toucan is in an environment that's too hot or too cold for it, it will die prematurely and all of the glory that was created, it was created with to be manifested to reveal God's character and nature will die with it.
If it doesn't get the proper nourishment, it will be sickly and not fully mature to manifest the glory that God put within inside of it. Same as you being born again. Time. If you don't give it the proper amount of time, if the parents didn't give it the right amount of time and kicked it out of the the nest prematurely, it'd fall and either die breaking its neck on the ground, or a predator would come and eat it because it thought it was more mature than it was. It needs the right environment, nourishment, and time to be able to fully manifest the glory that God put inside of it.
Amen? So the title of today's message is the environment of glory. The environment of glory. As a reminder, a little bit of a refresher from the first series, the environment of glory for a fish is water. A fish the nature, what is nature is the thing that God put inside of it that naturally comes out to reveal God's glory.
K? When you put a fish in water, it naturally just begins to wiggle its tail. Right? Move its gills, and it without even thinking what who it is and the glory of God comes out for all to see. When you take a a fish outside of the proper environment that it was created for to reveal the glory of God and you put it in the air or on the land, it's going to do what it was created to do.
It's gonna start wiggling its tail. It's gonna start moving its gills, and it's gonna flop and look pretty goofy because it's in the wrong environment. If it stays in the wrong environment for too long, it will die, and all of the glory that God put inside of it to be manifested to all for all of creation to see will die with it. A bird is created to reveal, to manifest the glory of God at the proper time in the air, in the sky. You take a bird out of the sky and you put it in the wrong environment, you stick it underwater, it's gonna flap the best it can.
Some can actually swim a bit, but you keep it there, it's going to die. And all of the glory that it was created to manifest will die with it because it's in the wrong environment. Land animals, exact same thing. You stick them under water. Some of them can swim.
It's great. But you keep them there, they will die, and all of the glory will too. So my question then is, what is the environment that man was created to live in to manifest the glory of God? Let's look at it. In Genesis-1.
Side note, God really loves you. I mean, he really loves you. He's mad about you. He cares for you, and he wants what's best for you in every way. Alright.
*Genesis-1:20*. And God said everybody say, God said. God said. Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures. So God spoke to the waters when he was creating the fish and the sea creatures.
Therefore, what he spoke to was the environment necessary them to live in to create create to reproduce or manifest the glory that was put on the inside of them. Let me show you. Let the waters swarm with living creatures. Let the birds fly above the earth across the across the expanse of the heavens. So he spoke to the heavens, the sky, the air.
What was the environment necessary for a bird to fully manifest its glory? The sky, the air. So God created the great sea creatures, the living creatures that move with each with which the waters swarm according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind, and God saw that it was good. And he blessed them and said, be fruitful and multiply. Fill the waters in the seas.
Let the birds multiply on the earth. And there was evening, and there was morning on the fifth day. Verse 24. Watch this. Let the earth, Hebrew word for earth there is soil, the ground, bring forth living creatures according to their kinds, livestock and creeping things, and beasts of the earth according to their kinds.
So God spoke to the earth. Therefore, the the right environment for land animals to to manifest the glory of God is the soil. Is that what she spoke to? Do you understand? So if if God spoke to the waters, therefore, the right environment for fish and sea creatures to manifest their glory is water.
And God spoke to the sky and to the air, therefore, the right environment for birds to manifest their glory is the sky and the air. And God spoke to the land or the soil, the earth, Therefore, the soil is the land is the right place for land animals to to fully manifest their glory. If you take them out of that environment, any of those 3, they will be hindered at least or die at best. Amen? So then what did God speak to when he created mankind?
*Genesis-1:26*. Then God said, let us make man in our image after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over the livestocks, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. So God created mankind in his own image. In the image of God, he created him. Male and female, he created them.
Male and female, you are created in the image of God. Female, you're not less than. You have nothing to prove. Male, don't treat female like she's less than. Amen?
Now, God spoke to himself. Let us, father, son, and holy spirit, create mankind in our image. Therefore, the proper environment for mankind to manifest the glory of God is God's presence. Outside of the presence of God, mankind will be hindered from manifesting the full glory of God and will die. In *Genesis-1* no.
Chapter 2 verses 7 and 8. It says, then the Lord God formed the man of the dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden in the East, and there he put the man whom he had formed. So God created man. Later, he created woman and put him in the garden with with Adam.
So you got Adam and Eve. He formed them and put them in a garden, the "Garden of Eden". Eden in the Hebrew means delight. It's the garden of delight. God delighted in *creation* and what he created, and he delighted in the climax of his creation, mankind who was created in his image.
Man is the apex of all of creation. He's not less than or equal to animals. We are created in the image of God. We are created to take care of and but have dominion over animals. It gets weird when people start treating animals as as important or more important than mankind.
Usually, that's because they're offended at mankind because mankind offended them in some kind of ways, and so they look to animals as their most as their biggest comfort instead of dealing with the with who offended them or the people that offended them, and learning to have strong relationships. I would encourage you, learn to have strong relationships and treat animals with the proper respect, which is less than the respect you give human beings. Do you understand? I mean, taking care of animals is a big deal, and it's part of the delegation that God gave to us. But do not magnify animals as more important than humans.
You're in sin if you're doing that. Do you understand? We must put the proper value on people that God put on people in the way that we act, and we treat, and we respond to other people. Amen? Okay.
That was a side note. So the garden of God's delight. In Isaiah, it also says that the Garden of Eden was the garden of God. It was the place of his presence. In in Genesis-3:8, it says, and they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day.
So if Adam and Eve recognized the sound of God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, they heard his voice, they recognized his voice, that would imply that they had relationship with God in the Garden of Eden. That this probably was not a 1 time thing, but it was probably something that they had done over and over. It was normal to them. It was something that they recognized. Mankind was created to fellowship with God, and the Garden of Eden represents the temple, the place the place where heaven met earth.
The place where the supernatural touched the natural. The place of unbroken fellowship and and unbroken ability to walk in the presence of God. You see that? That's the garden of Eden. Now when I say the presence of God, I I think I I need to explain a couple of things.
This is very important. God is omnipresent. He's omniscient, which means he's all knowing. He's omnipotent, which means he's all powerful. And he's omnipresent, which means he's everywhere.
Whether or not you sense him, he's in the room right now. According to the Bible, he holds together everyone and everything. Everything was created for him, by him, and through him, and he holds everything together. So God is not the tree. Religions that teach worship the tree, they're false, and they're cults taught by demons.
God is not the tree, but God does hold the tree together. Okay? God you are not God, but God does hold you together, and he can live in you. Okay? It's very important.
So God is omnipresence. He is here. But when we're talking about living in the presence of God, we're talking about living in and from the **manifested presence** of God, Where God makes himself known. Where you begin to experience a sense that God is here. Now, just follow me here for a second.
Your spirit, soul, and body. When you're born again, your whole your spirit is in communion with the Holy Spirit. And you're learning to hear God's voice, to walk with him. You're learning to commune with him. And that overflows from your spirit to your soul, which is your mind, will, and emotions, and your body.
So when God manifests his presence, you begin to sense him in different ways. You might sense him in your body. You might sense cold, heat, goosebumps, tingles. Right? Well, that's and and you just become aware God is here.
Is that weird? Could be to some. That's doesn't that's not normal too. But man, he wants it to be your normal. You begin to sense him in your soul.
You might not sense him in your body, but you sense him in your mind, your will, and emotions. When God begins to manifest his presence in your mind, you might have thoughts that are not your own. God might be speaking to you. The in 1 Corinthians-2, it talks about we have the "mind of Christ". He's revealing to you plans and your thoughts because he's speaking to you from the spirit into your mind.
Your mind, your will. You might have desires to do things for him that you never had. As God begins to manifest his presence, you have this desire to go to China
and preach the gospel.
Where'd that come from? Communion with the Holy Spirit. You have this desire to go to your neighbor's house, knock on the door, and pray for him. Where'd that desire come from? Communion with the Holy Spirit.
He's sharing with you. He's manifesting his presence, your mind, your will, your emotions. This happens a lot in our church. People just start crying. We're like the crying church in worship or in the word or different things.
People just start crying. What's happening? The Holy Spirit is manifesting his presence, and their ex their their body doesn't know what to do, and it overflows with tears. Sometimes it's tears of joy. Sometimes those are tears of godly sorrow, hopefully leading to repentance.
Sometimes it's just tears because you don't know why, but you just know God's in the room. Manifesting his presence, you have an awareness that he's he's here. My I have a friend that that would say, when I when I sense the presence of God, I just have an awareness that I'm really small, and he's really big, like a humbling. The manifested presence of God. Now I have to clarify something.
The presence of God is not the glory of God. The presence of God is not the glory of God. The presence of God is the environment necessary for the glory of God to be revealed. What is God's glory? It's who he is and what he does on display for all to see.
So God changes the environment. You have an awareness that he's there, and think of the presence of God as a pre sense that God's about to reveal himself. The presence of God is a pre sense that God is about to do something. How do we know God? We know him by what he's done.
He's Jehovah Rapha, our healer. So when we hear that God has healed somebody, it gives us hope that he is our healer, and we can experience him as the healer. Jehovah Jehovah *Jireh*, our provider. When we experience him in our life as the provider, we know him as provider. And when we sense his presence, we can know he's about to reveal himself in a way that we've maybe we've experienced before or we've never experienced.
He's our comforter. Sometimes you sense his presence and then you just begin to get a deep sense of of comfort. You have an awareness that God is here. And then all of sudden, you just get an awareness and a deep sense of of comfort in your soul in the midst of what you're going through. Why?
Because he's revealing. He's speaking comfort to you. So his glory as the comforter is being revealed in the midst of his presence. His presence is the environment necessary for the glory of God to be revealed in you and through you. Very important.
You guys get it? Very important. Now what happened in the Garden Of Eden? Mankind sinned. They chose themselves instead of God.
And *sin* separated mankind from God's presence. Little side note. I'll save that side note for later. Just ask me about it. I got stuff I need to do today.
So God kicked them out of the Garden Of Eden as an **act of mercy** and grace. I gotta go there now. If they would have eaten of the tree of life in a sinful state, they would have lived eternally in a sinful state. Eternally separated from unbroken fellowship with the father. So God kicked them out of the Garden of Eden, not because he hated him, but it was an act of mercy so that he could 1 day reconcile them with himself and give him the "tree of life".
Crazy thing in in Genesis-3, it says that God put a flaming sword going back and forth preventing mankind from going into the Garden of Eden. You know what the flaming sword is? *Jesus*. *Revelation-19*, he's got eyes of fire and a sword coming out of his mouth. Jesus says, I am the way, the truth, and the life.
He's the way back to the tree of life, and Jesus is the tree of life. The only way for you to experience unbroken fellowship with the father for the rest of your life is to go through Jesus. That's the only way. Jesus said, no man can come to the father but by me. Mohammed won't get you to the father.
The Bhagavad Gita won't get you to the father. Buddha won't get you to the father. Those are false ways. The only way is Jesus. He's the sword.
He's the way. He's the truth. He's the life. You must be born again when you believe that Jesus died and rose again. But not just believe, you gotta believe it so much that you're willing to say, I'm a follow you instead of myself.
I'm making you the Lord of my life. In that moment, you are crucified with Christ. You are done away with. You become a new creation. He forgives you of all of your sin and puts the Holy Spirit inside of you.
You become a child of God. John-1:12 13 14. So you you now, he puts he restores you. He puts his nature inside of you to be man made manifest as you grow like the bird, the the baby bird that was ugly into the mature bird. As you begin to grow by spending time in his presence, you begin to manifest the nature of your father because when you were born again, when you gave your life to him, he put it inside of you to be revealed through the right environment, nourishment, and time.
When you're born again, he opens a door spiritually back into the Garden of Eden, back into the place of unbroken fellowship with the father, back into the place where you can recognize God walking through your life in the cool of the day and hear and know his voice. I wanna do an exercise with you guys today. Is that okay? Yeah. If it's not, we're gonna do it anyway.
And you can just sit here and enjoy and wonder what's going on, and that's okay. Just just take it in. In in James-4:8, it says, **draw near** to God, and I and he will draw near to you. This is a promise, and it's talking about the manifested presence of God. You draw as a son of God or a daughter of God who has been born again.
You've went through the sword. It ain't about you anymore. It's about Jesus. You now have unfettered access to the presence of God. When Jesus died on the cross, he he said, he screamed out, and he gave up his he gave up his last breath.
He was saying, it has been finished, and it will remain finished. In that moment, there was a veil in the temple where they worshiped that separated mankind from the holy of holies. The holy of holies was the place of the manifested presence of God. That veil was too high to reach the top, and it was torn from top to bottom. Why?
Because when Jesus died, he was the perfect sacrifice that forgave the world of sin, opening the way for anyone whosoever will, who would ever receive the gift that Jesus paid to be able to freely walk into God's presence at any time. To stand confidently and boldly in the presence of the heavenly father because they went through the flaming sword, Jesus Christ. Now, the bible says, *James-4:8*, draw near to God and he will. Everybody say, will. Will.
Will draw near to you. That's a promise. And that's talking about experiencing the manifested *presence* of God. Whether that's a physical feeling or, like I talked about, the emotions, you start crying or joy, or just a knowing in your mind that God is here. Just a deep awareness or he's been speaking to you in your thoughts or I mean, however, you need to know that God will manifest to you the fact that he is here in his presence.
If you're a son or a daughter, you can boldly walk into his presence. All you gotta do is in a moment draw near. That's it. So this is real church. At real church, I'm not a fake it till you make it kinda guy.
As a matter of fact, I hate inauthenticity. I hate it. I hate I hate, you know, the people that fake a manifestation of God. I don't hate the people. I hate the fakie, the fake stuff.
I wanna address it. Cut it out. But, man, *authentic* moves of God light my fire. It's a big deal. Amen?
Okay. So I'm a ask you to participate authentically. But don't let what I said, the warning, cause you to doubt. Okay? I want you to close your eyes.
I'm gonna invite you to close your eyes. And whatever this this looks like for you, I want you to draw near to the Lord as you're seated. I want you to turn your heart and your mind, your affection, your attention to God. For me, it looks like I'm imagining me giving him my heart, and I'm putting my thoughts on him. Just draw near to the Lord.
Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. I want you to listen clearly. If you're experiencing an *authentic* manifestation of the presence of God, either in your body or your mind, your your will, your desire, your emotions, I want you to stand up. Just continue to draw near to the Lord.
Everybody else, stay seated. For the rest of you, and and even for those that are standing, 1 of the reasons that Christians who've been born again, have given their life to Jesus, they don't experience the manifested presence of God. Now I'm I'm telling you this because I love you, and I'm not saying this is true for everyone that's seated or is not experiencing that. But I want you to search your heart. In James-4:8, keep you guys that are drawing near, just keep drawing near.
But listen too. It says, draw near to God and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify you your hearts, you double minded. Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom.
Humble yourselves before the Lord and he will exalt you. Now, let me let me explain. For a Christian who wants to draw near to God and tries to, if there is *sin in your life* where you have actively been disobeying not doing what he's been telling you to do, or doing what he's been telling you not to do. If there's sin in your life, when you try to draw near to God, consciously or subconsciously, guilt and shame are causing you to not do it, to hide from him, consciously or subconsciously. The bible says in Hebrews-10, just listen, it says, and since we have a great priest, this is Jesus over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from a evil or guilty conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water.
So here's the deal. Those of you, you're trying to draw near, but as I said that, something came to mind. Oh, man. I've been disobeying in this area or not doing what he told me to do in this area. The good thing he told me to do, I've been neglecting.
Or the thing that he told me not to do, I'm continuing in. That's sin. Both of them. You have a guilty conscience, and it's causing you to hide from the presence of God and not really authentically draw near to him. I have good news.
2000 years ago on the cross, Jesus paid the price to forgive you completely already 2000 years ago. So here's what I want you to do. I want you to take that thing, whatever it is, ask the Holy Spirit to reveal it to you, and I want you to face it. Go there with Jesus. Close your eyes.
Face it. Go there with Jesus. Now if you wish you wouldn't have done that thing and you could go back, you would change it, you wouldn't do it. Or if you could go back and do the good thing that he was telling you to do that you didn't do, That's called a repentant heart. So I want you to confess to the Lord in your heart, I was wrong.
I was wrong. I repent. And you could even ask. I ask you to forgive me. But here's the thing.
He already paid for your forgiveness. So the blood that Jesus spilled 2,000 ago forgave you, and now you're going back to there, and he's cleansing your guilty conscience so that you can boldly approach his presence as a son and a daughter who's clean and pure. A clean conscience boldly approaches approaches his throne. Does that make sense? Makes sense?
So say, just say this with me, if you repented in your heart, you didn't you didn't wanna do it. Now, if you if you wanted, if you could go back and do it all over again, still would, that's not a repented heart. Don't expect to be to freely step into his presence because you're in rebellion. But if you're repentant, just say this, say thank you *Jesus* that I'm forgiven. Thank you that I'm your son, that I'm loved by you.
He's not mad at you. So your heart can be set clean. As a matter of fact, in 1 John-3, it says that if your heart condemns you, go to God who is greater than your heart, which means his word says you're forgiven even when your heart is condemning you. And he's greater. He already knew you would do what you did, and he still saved you anyway whenever that happened.
So you can set your heart at rest in his presence. You are forgiven. You are loved. Now, if you're a Christian, you've given your life to Jesus, you repented, you've done that. I want you to begin to draw near to him confidently as a son or daughter of God.
Just draw near to him. Turn your heart. Pretend you're giving him your heart. Just begin to thank him for who he is. Now if if now if you're experiencing authentically, you're experiencing the manifested presence of God, whether that's cold, heat, goose goosebumps, crying, an awareness that he's there, a desire to go after him more, or any kind of that's from God.
I want you to stand up. Pretty cool exercise. Keep going. Know that God's with you. Keep drawing near to him.
He loves you. Now, I wanna talk to all of you. When you draw near to God, he draws near to you. That's the Bible talks about, man, you can experience God on the outside, but not really have a relationship on the inside. He loves you.
He's not mad at you. Anyone's a relationship. There's some people in here that have never been born again. You've been going to church, and maybe even you're watching all this, like, these people are authentically experiencing God. That's interesting.
I want that. The way that you can have that not just at church, but even alone in your room, instead of being sad now, you can experience the joy of God and have purpose, is by giving your life to Jesus. It's by believing that Jesus died on a cross and rose again so much that you're willing to say, I'm a follow you instead of myself. I'm ready to authentically pursue you instead of me. In that moment, you're gonna supernaturally experience.
And you gotta confess it with your mouth. A lot of people say, well, believe it in my heart, but don't have to tell anybody. No. No. In Romans-10, it actually says you have to confess with your mouth.
With the heart you believe and are justified, with the mouth you're saved. There's a public confession that's necessary. So if if that's you, if you're in here and you're like, man, I'm I know that I need a relationship with God and I'm unashamed. I'm ready to give my life to Jesus. If that's you, I want you to raise your hand.
Just raise it high. Praise the Lord. If you're serious about that, want you to come forward. I'm a have Jerry and Heidi, Daniel. I want you to just come forward right here.
If you're serious about it, come forward over here. Who else? I'm ready to authentically give my life to Jesus. Praise the Lord. You guys can take them maybe back there.
If there's anybody else that go with them, you wanna give your life to Jesus, we're almost done. I wanna invite you all to stand. The Garden of Eden is not the end for mankind. You're not supposed to just experience God's manifested presence hanging out in the garden of Eden, sit on a hammock, and call it good. That's the churches that come and pursue the presence of God, but there's no peep nobody's being born again.
There's no multiplication. There's no people really coming into a relationship with Jesus. They're just hanging out in the garden and not doing the great commission. The garden's for a reason. God told Adam and Eve in Genesis-1, he said, be fruitful and multiply.
Fill the earth and subdue it. Which means the garden was manicured to be an accurate representation of the the manifest presence of God and the glory of God. But he was commissioning mankind to take that presence with him and go make the rest of the world look like the garden. That's why in Romans, it says, all of *creation* is groaning waiting for the sons of God to be revealed. Because it's the sons of God who are supposed to subdue the rest of the earth cultivating it to manifest the glory of God.
You. The first great commission was in Genesis-1. God commissioned Adam and Eve to fill the earth, multiply, and subdue it. Mankind fell. They sinned and fell short of the glory of God.
What happened next? At the fullness of time, Jesus was sent because he loved people to restore mankind to be able to walk in the glory of God. Experience the unbroken fellowship and presence of God, then also to be able to walk in his glory and fill the earth and subdue it. And then in Matthew-28, he gave the same great commission again. Hey, 11 disciples, you have my unbroken presence now.
I'm with you always. Now go and make disciples of all nations. Oh, wait. Before you go, you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and you will be my witnesses. So born again, the Holy Spirit, unbroken fellowship with God, walking with him in the cool of the day.
What is the baptism of the Holy *Spirit* that is in Acts? The baptism of Holy Spirit is God's anointing on you, empowering you to fulfill the great commission. It's God's presence, so not just you experiencing his presence, but it's so his presence is manifesting in and on your life in such a way that when you walk into a dark place, the people in the dark place begin to sense God and have an awareness that something's different. Eventually, they'll recognize it's you, and you'll have influence to speak in their life, or they'll persecute you because they're satisfied in darkness. 1 or the other.
The baptism of the Holy Spirit is God's presence on your life giving you the power, empowering you to be a carrier of his presence into a dark world so that they can begin to have a pre sense that God wants to move in their life. You understand? How many know that you're inadequate to change the atmosphere of your job? How many know you're inadequate to change the atmosphere of your neighbor's house? Some of you, maybe even your home, has an atmosphere that is not kingdom.
I I can't do it, but God can, and he's gonna do it through you, which means you need to be a carrier of his anointing and his presence. It's only by the baptism of the Holy Spirit. So I want you to think about the **"darkest place"** in your life right now. Not not saying in your heart or anything, I'm I'm talking about the place where you frequent the most that is the darkest place. Whether that's your job, neighbor's house, your community, your family.
I want you I want you to think about the darkest place right now. Just get it get that in your mind. My hope is that you have compassion on them, that they they need Jesus, that you're not saying, man, get me out of there. No. God sent you to that place.
Now thinking about that darkest place, I want you to begin to pray for it. God, they need you. God, they need you. God, they "need your light". They need your joy.
They need your peace. They need, Lord, what what I've experienced in you, they need it. Ask you to touch them. Let them experience your love, that you care for them. You're not mad at them, Lord God.
Whatever it takes, Lord God, help them to experience your peace, freedom, Lord God. All that fronting they're doing, they're putting up a a thing like they're okay, Lord God. When Lord, let them experience this kind of peace where they lay on at on their bed at night, Lord God, and they're good. There's no worries. There's no fears, Lord.
That that kind of peace, Lord. I pray that that kind of peace to permeate every aspect of the job, what whatever it is, that that darkest place. Now I want you to recognize that you can't change it. Lord, I'm inadequate in and of myself to change that. As a matter of fact, I wanna run from it.
But you called me to be a life a a changer of the world. So I need you. They need you, and you've asked me to give them you. So I need you. I want you to begin to ask the Holy *Spirit* to give you what you need to change that environment, that atmosphere.
Say, Holy Spirit, come. I ask you, heavenly Father, give me the gift of the of the baptism of Holy Spirit. Ask for more of you. Come Lord. Fill me with boldness.
Fill me with your spirit. I'm a ask the altar ministry team to come forward. And I'm just gonna leave you there. I want this next week, you just to begin to "hunger and thirst" for God because you you are inadequate in and of yourself to change the world, and you need more of him. Begin to pray for those darkest places because that's the place that he called you to go into with the presence and power of God to transform, not to make excuses anymore, but to stand like a son or daughter of God who's walking out of the Garden of Eden with the "power and presence" of God to go transform it into a place where they can experience the joy and peace of God in authentic way.
I just want you to begin to to hunger and thirst after righteousness this week. Stay in that place. Ask in the Lord, see what happens. And then if if you need prayer, you need ministry, something's going on in your life, or you just want prayer after all of this, the altar ministry team's up here. They're prepared to minister to you, to pray and *prophesy* over your life.
Lay hands on you if you're sick. Don't leave out of here if you have a need. God wants to minister to your need and he loves you so much. Is there any announcements that needs to be happen right now, Chevy? Did you have anything?
No? Alright. Let me pray for you. They're gonna turn some music on. Come get ministry if you need it.
Other than that, you're dismissed. Lord, I thank you for this amazing congregation. Teach us to go after you with all of our hearts, all of our mind, all of our soul. Lord God, it's just authentic ways. Thank you that we can experience the unbroken presence of God and be carriers of that.
Oh, yeah. So that others can experience who you are in a real way.