You are called to stop staying spiritual infants and start presenting your body as a living sacrifice to God. Ask the Lord for a fresh hunger today and step forward to receive the empowerment of the Holy Spirit. Let your life become a place of springs where others see Jesus.
Make sure you turn that off as you put it over Yeah. Got it. You know, we we were we were singing a song there at the end that was asking, you know, to "bring back the fire", you know, to have more hunger of God in your life. Prayer does precede movement. It's important.
The reason that, man, we're seeing lots of people give their life to Jesus. I mean, I think between August and September, at least a 160 people born again outside of Sunday morning, or just on Tuesday, Thursdays, and Saturdays. That's a big deal. Now, let's give a bigger hand clap. Praise the Lord.
What you honor is multiplied. You're not hand clapping for me, you're hand clapping for what God's doing. Amen? Honoring that so you can see that same kind of revival in your life, because when there's revival in your life, the lost around you will begin to give their life to Jesus and be discipled. Amen?
Amen. You begin to overflow what God is doing to those around you. Until then, you need to be revived, because a Christian, a Christian begins to look like Jesus in their daily life, where others see them and think of God and want want to have a relationship with the same God that we do. Amen? Amen.
That's what that's what Christianity is. It's not just a Sunday morning thing. Now you want fire in your life again? You want you want the hunger of God in your life? *Romans-12:1-2, it looks like presenting your bodies, presenting yourself as a living sacrifice*.
That's what it looks like. The priests kept the fire going in the temple by putting wood on it. Wood represents humans. Wood wood in the Old Testament represents our living us being a living sacrifice, placing ourself on the altar. So that looks like obedience.
Period. It looks like obedience. Obedience to the Lord in the little things and the big things in every area of your life. And and it will get exhausting if you're doing it just from your own performance, just like Mariah in the chair. You know, it'll get it because it because you really don't have faith in God.
You're just trying for a little bit, and you'll get exhausted and you'll run back to the world. But if you're you're sitting down in the finished work of Jesus, you know he's really worth giving it all for and giving it all to. And you're just surrendered. Lord, I give you everything. I give everything I've been holding on to and everything that I've been holding back from.
I'm all in presenting my body as a living sacrifice. You will see the fire of God in your life again, and that fire will not only consume you so that you look more like Jesus, but it will begin to consume the world around you. Other people will begin to hunger and desire what what God is doing in you and through you, and that is preceded by prayer. You want an honest assessment of your relationship with God? Look at your prayer life.
Prayer is the engine to evangelism. Prayer is the engine to everything. Prayer is your relationship with God. Prayer is hearing God and speaking back to Him. And if you don't know how to hear him, that means either you don't know him or you're an infant that needs to grow in him.
Amen. It's okay to be an infant, but it's not okay to stay an infant. It's okay to be a toddler but it's not okay to stay a toddler. If you have somebody that is acting like a toddler for 20 years, there's something
wrong. If you have a
Christian that's acting like an infant or toddler for 20 years, they are living for themselves instead of for Jesus. And it's time to grow up. Learn to hear the Lord and walk by faith. Present your body as a living sacrifice and quit living the Christian life as if it's all about you and your comfort. Amen?
Amen. You guys alright? Yeah. I tell you that with a smile because I love you. But it's a it's a it's a good kick in the butt to get up and get walking and following Jesus in every area of your life.
Amen? Okay. My name is David John Phillips. I have the *joy* and the honor of getting to be the pastor here, and I do, I say that every single time on purpose because I mean it and I want you to know it. And if this is your first time, we pray that you encounter the presence and the power of God, the love of Jesus in such a way that you're left never the same.
You're left wanting more, desiring more and giving everything that you have to Him all out because man, that's the only way that we experience more of Him. He doesn't want any, He doesn't want half of you, He wants all of you. Is He really your Lord if you're holding back? You know? If he's really the Lord of your life, there's 2 words in the English language you can't say say together.
It's the word no and the word Lord. It's impossible. You can't say no, Lord. Whoever is the Lord of your life, you'll always say yes to. And there's many people that play church or do the church thing and say yes to Jesus only as long as it fits what they're comfortable with or what they like.
And as soon as Jesus tells them to do something that they don't want to do, or they don't like to do, or they don't want to give up, they say no to Jesus and yes to themselves, which means they're still on the throne of their own heart. Following Jesus ain't comfortable to your flesh. And if it is comfortable to your flesh, then you're following a Jesus that you made after yourself in your own image instead of allowing him to conform you into his image. But repentance is a good thing. You repent, fall forward, man.
He'll pick you back up, empower you to look more like him every single day. And it's it's awesome. Alright. Let's let's get into what I meant to preach last week. We're in the glory of living series.
For a
brief
review, all of creation exists to manifest the glory of God. If all of creation is God's artwork, then you are God's masterpiece. He created you in his image, and there's a specific environment that you will reflect the glory of God in. What is the glory of God? The glory of God is who God is and what He does on display for all to see.
And He put an aspect of Himself in all of creation, and but then He created you in His image to reflect Him more fully than any other creation. He spoke. He spoke to the waters, said, let the waters team with fish and and sea life, and guess what? The proper environment for for fish and sea life to to reflect the glory of God is water. He spoke to the air, the sky.
He spoke to the land and created the birds and created the animals. Therefore, the proper environment for the birds to reflect the glory of God, its glorious when you see them flying in the sky. The proper environment for land animals to reflect their glory is is on land. But when he created you, he spoke to himself. Let us create mankind in our image, the father, son, the Holy Spirit.
Therefore, the proper environment for you to reflect the glory of God, to put on display who he is and what he does is God's presence. You were created in Adam and Eve were created to exist in the Garden Of Eden and to work from the Garden of Eden, filling the whole earth and bringing it into submission to God's plan. Fill the whole earth, multiply and subdue it. But mankind was kicked out of God's presence because of sin. Out of God's **unbroken presence**, walking with God in the cool of day of the day.
For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Because they were kicked out of the environment necessary for them to experience and reflect the glory of God, they fell short of the glory of God and weren't able to live out their purpose. Amen? You guys follow me? Okay.
So, fullness of time, God sent Jesus, God loves you so much He sent His 1 and only Son. Why? To restore your created value. Not just to forgive you of your sin, but to transform you. The cross does away with you.
We have been crucified. It's no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And if you still holding on to yourself, I am sorry. Surrender it all to Jesus because the cross is supposed to do away with you. Pick up your cross.
The only way to follow Jesus is to first deny yourself, "pick up your cross" and follow Him. Too many churches in American culture make it all about self help, be more blessed, get your blessing, get your healing, get all of those things come, they are extra, but first, "seek ye first" the kingdom and His righteousness and all these things will be added. Seeking first His kingdom and His righteousness looks like denying yourself, picking up your cross and following Him. Yes, Lord. Everybody say, yes, Lord.
Yes, Lord. Amen. So when you confess Him as Lord of your life, you're willing to follow Him instead of yourself. He forgives you of all of your sin, puts the Holy Spirit inside of you, restoring you to being a temple of His presence, being able to walk in the unbroken presence of God day in and day out. You become a Garden of Eden, like a temple of God.
And then He commissions you to go and transform the world. That's the Great Commission, Matthew-28. All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me, therefore go, outside of yourself, really, and make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And lo, King James Version, I am with you always until the end of the earth. Amen?
Amen. You guys with me? We're all brought up to speed? Good to go? So we did this exercise a couple of weeks ago.
*James-4:8* says, "draw near to God", and he will draw near to you. And we're talking about the presence of God. The presence of God is a presense that God wants to do something. He wants to reveal his glory. The presence of God is not the glory of God, but the presence of God is the environment necessary for God's glory to be revealed.
*God is omnipresent*. He's everywhere at all times, and He holds all things together. Amen? But He also likes to manifest His presence. Now, I went into this in-depth, but I'm gonna hit it quickly.
If you're like, woah, that's a lot. Go back and listen to to the podcast. But remember, you are spirit, soul, and body. When you're born again, your spirit is made new, and in communion with the Holy Spirit. Okay?
That's how, that's why 1 Corinthians-2 says you have the mind of Christ. You can you can hear the voice of God. You can know Him and discern things by the Spirit. But you're also soul and body. Your soul is your mind, will, and emotions.
Your body is your body. We present our bodies as a living sacrifice. Anyway, the the manifested *presence of God*, a lot of times you get to sense where it's an overflow of what God's doing in *communion* with your spirit, and He manifests Himself so you can sense that He's there. Maybe you sense Him in your soul, okay, so you sense Him in your mind. Maybe you have thoughts that you wouldn't normally think that are in line with Scripture, the principles and character nature of God, and He's revealing Himself to you as you're drawing near to Him.
He's drawing near to you, and it's overflowing into into your mind, or maybe your emotions. A lot of people call us the crying church. They just people just start crying all the time here. You know? And the tears of joy for some of a lot of people.
And other times, it's it's godly sorrow leading to repentance, a deeper desire to know him. But it's sometimes, you know, the manifest *presence of God manifests people joy*. They have joy unspeakable and full of glory. There's a lot of different ways that God can manifest His presence. It's a beautiful thing.
So maybe it's your mind, your it's your emotions, or it's your will. You have a desire to follow Him like you never would have before. You get in His presence, and and all of a sudden, you have clear vision for what's next, and you wanna go start something, or you wanna go go start that business, or go to Africa, and and be a missionary, or or go back to school, or or or start a family, or be the husband that God created you to be, like what whatever it is. It could be the manifest presence of God, Him speaking to you and and showing you His will for your life, as it overflows into your soul. Or you could have, you know, it could sense His presence in your body.
Right? Some people feel tingles or cold or heat or or you know, they sense peace, you know, in in in their soul. Whatever it is, there's a lot of different ways. The promise though is draw near to God and he Will. Draw near to you.
That is a promise. And we did this exercise where we we we just sat here and and I I told you guys just to turn your hearts to God, and people begin to sense the presence of God. We're not a fake it till you make it church. We're not trying to hype you up into this experience. I just wanna teach you to really walk with God in your daily life here, so that you can go do it Monday through Saturday when you're not here with all the more obedience.
Amen? Amen. To him. Okay.
So so then we we share this, and if this is new for you,
these are all principles. Like, there's a lot of times when you draw near to God or you wanna draw near to God, but your conscience is holding you back. You have a guilty conscience. So no matter what you do on the outside, you're not sensing the presence of God because of your guilty conscience. You'll never stand boldly before the throne of God when you have a guilty conscience.
You'll shrink back in shame. That's why in Hebrews, it says that we can have our hearts purified from a guilty conscience. Why? How? By the sprinkling of the blood.
We go back and remember that Jesus died on a cross, and he poured out his blood to cleanse us of our past, present, and future sins. So we are reminded of what Jesus did 2000 years ago, that it matters for us for us today, that he credited his righteousness into our account, so we we confess, Lord, what I did was not of you, therefore, it's not of me. It shouldn't have I shouldn't have done that. We repent, repent, pent. Think of like the penthouse, the top of a building.
What are we doing? We're returning to the place in that area of what God says about it. Instead of doing what we thought or what we felt, you know, about that situation, we're turning to what God thinks, the high the highest way of thinking, kingdom thinking. Amen? Amen.
And he says, you're forgiven, and he says, hey. Stop. Let's keep going my way instead of yours. That's repentance. And and we're reminded that we're forgiven so that we can live as 1 who's forgiven.
Amen? Then you draw near to God. Now you can stand confidently in his presence as a son of God, not hiding in shame anymore because Jesus paid for all of your shame. And anytime you fall into shame in this world, go back and remember what Jesus has done, repent of your junk and keep walking forward, and you'll experience the manifested presence of God in your life. Amen.
You good? Yeah. Now what I didn't tell you is there's a caveat. You ready for the caveat? There's a lot of people in the Christian world that live by feeling, and God hates it.
You know why? Because he he hates idolatry. There's a lot of people that are pursuing a feeling more than they're pursuing him. That feeling of peace, if you break down and can't follow Jesus because you don't have this feeling of peace and and and whatever, then peace is your idol. If you have to feel him in a certain way to follow him, then that's an idol.
You If have to feel tingles and goosebumps and all this stuff, it's an idol. Those are good things when I'm seeking first his kingdom and his righteousness. I'm not seeking an experience. You hear that? I'm not seeking an experience, I'm seeking him.
I love his presence, but even if I don't experience the manifested presence of God, I know he's with me because his word says he is and he's enough, and what he says is truth enough. And there's seasons in your life, if you're really in pursuit of the Lord, seasons of wilderness or seasons of winter. What happens after winter? New growth. What happens after wilderness in the Bible?
Promise. Ministry. More of him. But there's seasons of wilderness and seasons of winter where he takes back what you're used to. The manifested presence of God.
Maybe you always get tingles when you sense His presence, or maybe you always get this deep sense of peace, or the this awareness, or whatever it is, where He takes it back to test you to see if you're really all about Him, and you trust His word over what you feel. Because he does not want to empower someone into idolatry just pursuing a feeling instead of pursuing him. So there's the caveat. When you draw near to God, he will draw near to you. And, you can trust his word that it's happening whether you feel him or you don't.
And, what he did in sending his son is enough to give him all of your life and follow him even if he never gives you another blessing. If he never heals your body, if he never if he never gives you another prophetic word, he never blesses your business, he never blesses your family, he's done enough in giving Jesus. Give your life to him. But here's the promise that his word already said, seek him first in his righteousness, and all these things will be added. He doesn't lie.
You can trust him, and he's a good God. He's gonna give you what you need when you need it, and if you don't have it yet, just rest in his goodness and continue to contend for it by faith, but you're pursuing Him first and not the thing. And at the right time, all of a sudden, when you step into spring or you step into the promise, all of those things will come back all the more because you've shown that it's not about what you wanted or what you always thought you needed, but you're really in it for him and him alone. A lot of Christians can't handle that. A lot of people that follow Jesus, I would say, that they think they're following Jesus can't handle it.
You know how I know? Because we're the same as the people were 2000 years ago. And when Jesus said it was all about him, when he said, hey, you want follow me, you must drink my flesh drink my blood and eat my flesh, all of them left. And he turned to the disciples, so what about you? You're gonna go too?
It's not about your blessing. It's about him. And if you're willing to stay when it's about him and not about you, that's when you really know you love him. So man, I've been through those seasons. I've been through them.
And it's Lord, I'm doing what I know to do in winter and in the wilderness whether or not I feel you. I'm so passionate about this because I went through 8 years of depression from year 14 to '22 because I didn't understand this principle. I made it all about me to some extent. *God* still used me in in amazing ways, but I was like, God, I wanna be on fire for you again like I was in eighth grade. And in ninth grade, you know, I got distracted for a moment or whatever, so I I started doing everything I knew to do to make God work in my life again.
And there's nothing that I could do to to feel him like I used to feel him. And so I went on this sin hunt thinking it was, you know, I was, you know, I was deceived in some place, and I was dumb. I was it was all about what I was doing instead about trusting him and resting in his finished work. Makes sense? So when you draw near to God, you don't sense the manifest presence of God, in a moment, just ask the Holy Spirit, is there anything?
Look to him. Is there anything that that, you know, I should know about? Bring it to mind. I'll repent. If he doesn't bring anything to mind, praise the Lord.
Just continue to know that you're the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus, and stand in what you know in his word, and he'll give you everything that you need, and seek Him first in His righteousness. And all the rest, man, He's a good Father. He'll lavish it on you more than you could imagine. But He's going He's He's relentless about your maturity And about Him being the only idol in your life. Now, part of that, in this world you will have trouble.
Are you gonna get distracted by the trouble? Are you gonna continue to stand on who he is and what he does and trust him in the midst of the trouble? Because that's a test too. It's a hard test. There's a lot of people having trouble in this life.
And you're supposed to be a Garden of Eden that overflows his goodness and his presence into their trouble and transforms it, not identifying with their trouble and having and experiencing the same type of anti kingdom reality in your life. Let me explain. What's the reality of the kingdom? Righteousness, *peace and joy*. Righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.
Right? So it's righteousness in the Holy Spirit, peace in the Holy Spirit, and joy in the Holy Spirit. That's our reality. Do we experience trouble in this life? Yes.
Should we confront the trouble? Yes. Should we we don't walk in denial. People who walk in denial calling it faith, it's dumb. I'm sorry, but not sorry.
You can't kill Goliath without recognizing that Goliath is in front of you. So I recognize good Goliath. I confront Goliath, but then I cut his head off with his word. You understand? If there's depression, I recognize depression is there, but then I cut the head off with his word.
If there's sickness, if there's I recognize it's there, but I don't claim it as my own. No. No. No. I cut this head off with what the word says.
Amen? Amen. Okay. So we there's trouble. There's there's hard things in this world.
What do we do in the midst of the trouble? *2 Corinthians-1:2-3*, I think, 3 and 4. The God of all comfort, the God of compassion and the God of all comfort will comfort you in the midst of your trial. That means in the midst of your trouble, He wants to mourn with you. It's okay to mourn.
He wants to lean in with you and be the if He's all comfort, then He knows exactly what you need in that moment. You trust Him, He'll give you the comfort that you need so that you can be healed and whole. And then it says after that, so that you can comfort others with the comfort you received. Everything he gives to you is not just for you, it's to overflow out of you so you can be the hands and feet of Jesus to the world around you. But it takes a certain kind of faith to be able to live that way.
The faith of more than an infant, 1 that's maturing in the Lord, approaching him like a child, but growing into maturity. What does it look like? Psalm chapter 1 37. I'll show you what it looks like. Psalm 1 37.
This is a tough Psalm. It's 1 of the last Psalms written. It was written by the exiles. I'll tell you about it. Verse 1.
By the waters of Babylon, there we sat down and wept. When we remembered Zion, on the willows there we hung our leers. Another version says harp. Harps. A leer is a stringed instrument that kinda looks like a harp.
So on the waters of Babylon, let me tell you a little bit about what's happening here. In in the Old Testament, you know, Israel became a nation. God blessed Israel. You had King David. You had King Saul, then King David, then King Solomon, and multiple kings after that.
And they did a lot of stupid stuff, you know. And and they were under the old covenant law, God judged them. And because He has to judge sin, He does. And part of that, their nation and their temple was ravished by Babylon, by the the Empire of Babylon that you see in history. Israel was ravished by them.
The temple was knocked down, not a brick laying on top of itself. It was all they raped the women, they murdered the children, and they took the best of them from Jerusalem to modern day Baghdad, which have been the capital of Babylon. 600 miles, in Louisiana we'd say as crow flies, so 600 miles straight, right, they probably walked up and down rivers and stuff because that's what you did back then, so it might have been a 7, 8, 900 mile journey. If that keeps going, I'll swap over to the handheld mic. But it would have been a 900 mile journey, 800, 700 mile.
Anyway, it would have taken about a month, at least a month for them to do because it was, the Bible says over 4,000, but if that's just 4,000 men, then it may have been 20,000 to 30,000 men, women, children, all of those things. Can you imagine that? I gotta change this out. Give me just 1 second. Praise the Lord.
1 day, we're gonna have a building so we don't have to set up and tear down all the time. And we'll those little intermittent issues won't won't happen as much. Amen? So if you can imagine probably something like 20,000 people, some of the best of the best of society, being dragged off as captives to an enemy that doesn't know God. They've seen their families slaughtered, their daughters raped and murdered.
It's a bad day. And they're being led, probably ropes, to Babylon, to the capital of the enemy. And that's where this Psalm comes out of. By the waters of Babylon, there we sat down and wept, where we remembered Zion. On the willows, there we hung our leers or our harps.
For there our captors required of us songs, and our tormentors mirth saying, sing to us 1 of those songs of Zion. How shall we sing the Lord's song in the foreign land? If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its skill. Let my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth. If I do not remember you, if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy.
Remember, o Lord, against the Edomites the day of Jerusalem, how they said, lay it bare, lay it bare, Down to its foundations. O daughter of Babylon, doomed to be destroyed. Blessed shall he be who repays you with what you have done to us. Blessed shall he be who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rocks. That's not God saying that's okay to do.
That's a people crying out the depths of their heart, vengeance on those that have done this to us. They probably saw the Babylonians dash their little ones against the rocks. It was a bad day. The worst of the worst. Turn your attention to verse 2.
On the willows there we hung our harps. For there our captors required of us songs, our tormentors mirth, which is joy, saying, sing to us 1 of those songs of giant Zion. So can you imagine the very ones that that raped and murdered their families are now saying, hey, we heard about your joyful songs. Why don't you sing to us 1 of those joyful songs now? Mocking them.
And they said, you know, can't do it, I'm done. On the waters of the Khibar River in Babylon they hung their harps. I can't, my joyful songs are over. I'm hanging my harps up on the weeping willows. So there was there was trees along the Khibar River, willows, which is, we call them weeping willows.
It signifies mourning and sadness. So they're they're hanging their harps, they're singing their joy representing their future on the weeping willows because of the situation that they're in. It's the worst of the worst. Maybe you've not been there because you live in America at that kind of place, but you felt like that in your life. How do you respond to losing it all?
How do you respond to losing everything? Or the potential of it? Do you hang up your harp on the weeping willow? It's good to mourn, but it's not good to stay there. There's 2 types of people.
The people that hang their harps in those situations, it's over. I can't see the future anymore. How could I even go on? I'm done. Or, *Ezekiel-1*.
In the thirteenth year, in the fourth month, on the fifth day of the month, as I was among the exiles by the Chebar Canal, Ezekiel was with the exiles at the Khibar Canal. He saw the harps and the willows. He saw the broken dreams because of what they were going through. And what did he what did what did he do? The heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God.
In the midst of the morning, everyone else, if you lean in, 2 Corinthians-1, 2, and 3, and you let the God of all comfort comfort you and mourn with you, he'll change your mourning into a clearer vision of him. Don't hang your harps in the willows. The Bible says, rejoice always, even in the midst of deep pain. Again, I say rejoice. You don't rejoice in the circumstance.
You rejoice in the Lord. What did Ezekiel do? He looked through everybody else's broken dreams. He looked through the harps, and he saw in the sky, later in Ezekiel-1 it says, a bright light. He saw through their junk, and he saw a vision of God.
That's who we are, church. As those who follow Jesus, who carry the unbroken presence of God, we live in a world that's full of unrighteousness, the opposite of peace, anxiety, worry, depression, fear, the opposite of joy, depression, sadness, *mourning*. And we confront it with God. But then we walk in righteousness, peace, and joy from him in the midst of it. Heard trauma groups or some some kind of a new thing, trauma dumping or whatever it is.
Don't do that. Repent if you've been doing it. Confront it with the Lord, and go bring the righteousness, peace, and joy of God to the situation. Do you understand? See God in the middle of it.
If you have a relationship with Him and you're a carrier of His presence, He's given you you took a drink of the water, and it's welling up to eternal life, which means knowing God, which means you can know him in the midst of that situation and shift the situation from unrighteousness, anxiety, worry, and stress, and depression, and despair, to righteousness, peace, and joy, because you confronted the giant with him and cut the head off of it and began to live from a kingdom reality on earth as it is in heaven, is how Jesus told us to pray. And if He told us to pray that way, then that means it's possible. In my life. Amen. In my life as it is in heaven.
In my emotions as it is in heaven, in Jesus' name. Amen? But it even goes deeper from there. See, the Babylonians continued to hell hold them captive. Ezekiel and Daniel were there in Babylon, but because of their perspective, because they were able to see God in the midst of it, they were raised to places of authority and transformed the culture of Babylon even.
They turned it into a place of springs where even Nebuchadnezzar toward the end of his life recognized and had faith in God. That's the life you're supposed to live. That's it. Don't be so succumb. Oh, the world's ending and everything's getting bad.
Yeah, it's getting bad. Absolutely. But God sent you into a bad world to transform it. Psalm 84. This is our perspective, and then this is the result.
In the midst of the junk, you gotta be so distracted from the junk by Jesus. Confront it, but be distracted from the junk by Jesus. Watch. How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord of hosts. My soul longs, yes, faints for the courts of the Lord.
My mind, my will, and emotions will not be distracted by the evil going on. But I will long for the courts of the Lord. I will set my mind on you. My emotions will follow, and so will my desires. My soul longs for you, even faints for the courts of the Lord.
My heart and my flesh sing for joy to the living God. Let the abundance of out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. What's your mouth speaking? Is it singing singing for joy to the living God? Or is it declaring curses because of what you've been staring at?
May my heart sing for joy in the midst of despair because I'm so focused on him that I've cut off the giant that's causing it. My flesh even. I've renewed my mind so much that my flesh wants to follow Jesus. My heart and my flesh sing for joy to the living God. Even the sparrow finds a home in the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young at your altars, O Lord of hosts, my King and my God.
Blessed are those who dwell in your house, ever singing your praise. And guess what? You've become a temple of God, a house of the Lord. So you're supposed to ever sing his praise, recognizing and acknowledging that the presence of God follows you everywhere you go. Watch what happens.
As they go through the Valley Of Baca, everybody say the Valley Of Baca. They make it a place of springs, and early rains cover it with pools. What is the Valley Of Baca? Baca, the name Baca means mourning and weeping. So as these that are living like I've been talking about go through the Valley Of Baca, they turn it into a place of springs.
They turn the morning into a place of springs. You live in the Valley Of Baca. You live in a place where there's unrighteousness, a lack of peace, and a lack of joy everywhere you go. And you're supposed to, my heart and flesh crying out for the Lord so much, being such a place of His presence, that He commissioned you outside of yourself into the Valley Of Baca to take the presence of God into the places of mourning, so that it transforms them from unrighteousness to righteousness, from anxiety and worry and stress to peace, and from depression to joy. That's what you carry.
Transform the Valley Of Baca into a place of springs. It's the anointing of God. And it's a joy to carry that. I'm gonna ask the altar team to come forward. And if there's maybe whoever needs to be out there for the baptism, you can do that too.
How do you turn a Valley Of Baca into a place of springs? How do you turn a place of mourning into a place of springs? When you're born again, you have the Holy Spirit in you welling up to eternal life. Right? So the Holy Spirit's in you.
When you're baptized in the Holy Spirit, you're it's like you're in the Holy Spirit. The presence of God is on you to transform the world around you. He said in *Acts-1* to wait. You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you. And then you will be my witnesses.
The baptism in the Holy Spirit is the empowerment of God to be a witness to the world around you, where they see God's movement in you and through you. In John-7, *Jesus* says, anybody who takes a drink, it will turn into rivers of living water flowing out from you. So this is more than just welling up to eternal life. It's flowing out, transforming the world around you into springs. And it says right after that, this he was talking about, about the gift of the Holy Spirit that was yet to be given.
That happened at Pentecost. This is the baptism of the Holy Spirit. If you're lacking in your boldness, you're lacking in just the transformation power, the anointing see, the baptism of the Holy Spirit doesn't just empower you to be a witness, but it also anoints you for your purpose. It anoints you to be able to carry out the supernatural work God wants you to do. And this altar call is for anybody that really wants to be empowered to turn the places of unrighteousness, a lack of peace, and a lack of *joy* into places of springs of the living God.
And you you want more of that in your life. You wanna see more of him moving. You have a hunger and a desire for more of that. If as I'm I'm saying that, you just sense the Holy Spirit on you right now. And this is not a fake it till you make it thing.
But you just sense God saying, I want more of that. That's me. You sense the Holy Spirit right now saying that's you. Would you stand up? Come forward.
Let them pray for you. The rest of you, just ask the Lord for a hunger. Ask for more. Come forward. Let them pray for you.
You can turn on some music. Mariah, you can come dismiss us.