Your goodness, I thank you for this family,
for your smile on us, for the fellowship
that we truly have with one another and
with you.
Give us ears to hear what your spirit
is saying through your word in Jesus name.
Amen.
Turn with me to Exodus chapter 33.
This is a message for us tonight as
individuals.
It is not so much a corporate message,
but a message for us as individuals.
I ministered also on Thursday night on the
essential nature of the presence and power of
God in our midst, not realizing that Bob
had preached on a similar theme the previous
Sunday and leading the way to our time
of prayer and fasting.
And I also read from Exodus 33 towards
the end of the message Thursday night.
Where the children of Israel had sinned in
the previous chapter and made a golden calf
were worshiping an idol, were giving way to
the flesh.
Right after God had given the Ten Commandments
to his people and was giving Moses the
instructions for the building of the tabernacle, this
was to be a very sacred time, but
the people fell into sin and God judged
them quickly and then had to move out
of the camp because if he stayed in
the camp, his holiness would have brought judgment
on the whole nation.
So he went out of the camp, his
presence was removed from being in the midst
of the people.
The whole purpose of the tabernacle was that
God wanted to dwell in the midst of
his people.
The whole reason he wanted them to build
a holy place for him with specific rules
and specifications and guidelines is so that there
could be a fit place in which he
could dwell and that Israel could take the
presence of God with the utmost seriousness.
But now, because of their sin, he had
to dwell outside the camp and Moses would
go out and meet with the Lord at
a tent that they set up.
They call it the tent of meeting.
And if anyone wanted to meet with the
Lord, they'd go out.
And we read where Moses prays his own
relationship with God was not enough for him
because he had a burden for his people,
for his nation.
So he prays in verse 12 and communes
with the Lord, this is what we had
read, you've been telling me, leave these people,
but you've not let me know whom you'll
send with me.
You have said, I know you by name
and you have found favor with me.
If you are pleased with me, teach me
your ways so I may know you and
continue to find favor with you.
Remember that this nation is your people.
So Moses is absorbed in communion with God,
but deeply burdened for the welfare of his
nation.
We heard some of that from our internationals
praying tonight, their hearts break for their people,
for their nation.
And Moses was concerned for the good of
his people, for the glory of God to
be fulfilled through the people of Israel.
The Lord replied to Moses, my presence will
go with you and I will give you
rest.
Then Moses said to him, if your presence
does not go with us, do not send
us up from here.
It was a key point we made Thursday.
If God is not going to go with
us as a people, as a body, as
a family, as individuals, if God is not
going to go with us as a community
of believers, as a school, if God's not
going to go with us, what else is
going to separate us from everyone else?
That's our life, that's our breath, his presence,
his power manifest in our midst.
Moses said to him, if your presence doesn't
go with us, do not send us up
from here.
How will anyone know that you are pleased
with me and with your people unless you
go with us?
What else will distinguish me and your people
from all the other people on the face
of the earth?
This is the great distinguishing mark, the manifest
presence of God in the midst of his
people.
The Lord said to Moses, I will do
the very thing you have asked me because
I am pleased with you and I know
you by name.
Moses' relationship with God was deep enough that
because of Moses, God answered.
God speaks in Jeremiah 15 about a situation
that is so terrible that the nation has
sinned so much and has gone so far
that God tells Jeremiah, even if Moses and
Samuel stood before me and prayed, even if
ones who were intimate with me with a
life of intercession, even if they appealed for
this nation, I still wouldn't answer.
It's too late.
That's the kind of reputation with God that
Moses had.
And because of Moses' relationship with God and
God's promises to the patriarchs, Moses was able
to prevail in prayer and get hold of
God and save a nation.
Leonard Ravenhill used to say, it's an amazing
thing when God gets hold of a man.
It's an even more amazing thing when a
man gets hold of God.
God even tells Moses that a few times,
let me go.
Let me just go and destroy these people
because they're guilty.
Moses holds on and gets the answer.
But notice that that there's something in the
heart of Moses beyond prayer for the nation.
There's something in the heart of Moses beyond
the burden for the people because he's experienced
something with God.
He's he's been ruined, as we might say,
is that words commonly used among believers.
He's been ruined to ordinary life in God
and to the to the relationship with God
that the average person would have, or even
if you could say the average prophet would
have.
He had something deeper.
Remember, just a few verses before earlier in
this very chapter, it talks about how God's
glory would come down, the cloud would come
down, Moses would go outside the camp and
when he'd go outside the camp at the
tent of meeting, the literal presence of God
would come down and everybody would in the
whole nation would stand at their tents and
worship.
And then Moses would just talk to the
Lord and the Lord to Moses as a
man speaks with his friend back and forth
communion conversation.
Despite that, that did not end the hunger
of Moses that did not satisfy the hunger
of Moses that only created deeper desire in
him to experience his glory.
There's something when you're touched, when God gets
hold of you, when when he works in
you, when you've had a certain walk with
him, that you just can't live the way
other people live and that there's a cry
for more.
So Moses is not just praying for the
nation now, this is now between him and
God, he's gotten his appeal for the nation.
God's not going to destroy Israel.
There is mercy.
So what does he do?
He cries out for some desperate thing in
his own life.
Now, show me your glory.
He knew in a very, very real way
that there was some aspect of God that
was being held back from him.
You've got to remember when the glory came
down on Mount Sinai.
In the 19th chapter of Exodus and the
24th chapter, it describes it as well, that
the glory of God looked like a consuming
fire on the mountain and there's thundering going
out and the sound of trumpet blasts, even
a warning, even if an animal gets close
to the mountain, it's going to be thrust
through or stoned or pierced through.
And Moses gets to go right up in
the middle of it, right into the thick
of the glory of God.
This is the same Moses that had his
first divine encounter in Exodus, the third chapter,
where the Lord, through his angel, appears to
him and he sees the bush burning and
not consumed.
This is a man who had experienced God.
In Numbers 12, it says about Moses in
contrast with other prophets through whom God would
speak.
He didn't just speak to Moses in dreams
and visions, but face to face.
And yet there's something in Moses that cries
out for more of a manifestation of who
God is.
Then Moses said, now, show me your glory.
Sometimes you can't explain the hunger in your
heart to other people.
Sometimes you can't explain the longing of your
heart, even when it seems you have everything
you could want in God and things are
going well and you're healthy and strong and
blessed and your family is doing well or
the ministry that God's entrusted you is doing
well.
And still there's this thing deep down with
it.
Sometimes the burden is obvious because people are
sick and dying and in need and your
heart is burning for them because of that.
But other times it's just it's in there
and it's beyond words.
But what exactly did Moses even mean?
Show me your glory.
The heart cry goes up to the throne.
The heart cry goes from the heart of
Moses to God with whom Moses is communing
face to face.
And the Lord said, I will cause all
my goodness to pass in front of you.
And I will proclaim my name, the Lord,
in your presence.
I will have mercy on whom I will
have mercy and I will have compassion on
whom I'll have compassion.
But he said, you cannot see my face
for no one may see me and laugh.
I mean, it could have been that simple
that that Moses just it just want to
see the face of the one he was
speaking to.
Just wanted to get that more intimate view
of the real God, which Moses can only
express and refer to the glory of God,
whatever it is he's crying out for.
God says, I'll show you more, but I
still can't show you everything.
It's an amazing thing.
We could be with God every day, 24
hours a day for a million years.
Let's just say time continue to exist as
we know it, 24 hours a day for
a million years.
And God could reveal more of himself to
us every day to the point that it
would stagger us and that we'd be on
our face overwhelmed.
And after a million years, he's only shown
us a fraction of who he is.
You cannot see my face for no one
may see me and live.
Then look at this.
Then the Lord said.
There is a place near me where you
may stand on a rock.
Hebrews, very, very simple.
Behold, there's a place with.
You may stand on a rock where my
glory passes by, I'll put you in a
cleft in the rock and cover you with
my hand until I pass by, then I
will remove my hand and you will see
my back.
But my face must not be seen.
I mean, this is extraordinary.
This is one of the most amazing accounts
in all of Scripture.
And then the 34th chapter goes on in
detail.
As I drove up to the.
Meeting tonight, just praying.
Having spent time before the Lord in the
afternoon and just asking him, father, what's on
your heart for your people tonight?
We're not together often in the setting on
a Sunday night.
What have you put within me for them
tonight?
These words just rose up in me.
There's a place near me.
There's a place with me.
Talk about it.
I want to make this as personal and
individual as I can.
And even some other texts that we'll look
at in a little while that that are
corporate texts, I want us to apply them
as much as we can individually.
And I'm not necessarily saying that this is
the literal explanation of what the text is
talking about, but I'm doing what I believe
God wants me to do by focusing in
on these few words here and talking to
you and speaking to myself as well, speaking
to us as individuals about this place with
God.
There's nothing more important in your life, nothing,
not your physical health, not your emotional well
-being, not your relationships, not your surroundings, not
your finances.
Nothing is as important on any level.
Nothing is as important as maintaining this place
of intimate relationship with God.
And there was something about this in the
literal account where where there was a literal
place in the rock where Moses could just
get in there.
And then God was going to cover him
and then at the right moment allow him
to see his back.
And then as God passed by, there would
be a revelation that Moses received that would
be deeper than what he had.
And it would be a manifestation of the
glory of God.
There was that literal place where he could
get in and stand there.
You ever been in a serious windstorm of
some kind and you find the place you
can just step out of the wind and
it's swirling all around you, but you're not
being touched at all.
You ever found a place where pouring rain,
drenching, pouring rain, and you just thought you
just step in this little thing.
And because of the way the wind is
and the way the buildings are around you,
you're not being touched at all.
And it's a real place.
Listen to me.
In our individual lives in God, there is
this real place that develops spiritually, a place
of intimacy, a place of priority in our
lives, of meeting with God, a slot, whether
it's in a time of day, whether it's
in a physical location is not the issue.
There is something real that we take hold
of that becomes a special thing in our
lives with us and God.
Again, I'm not so much talking about a
time, although it may be tied in with
that.
I'm not so much talking about a room
in the house, although it may be tied
in with that.
I'm talking about a spiritual thing.
And to the extent the devil can successfully
pull us out of that place, to the
extent that our own life circumstances can pull
out of that place, to the extent that
the busyness of life and ministry can pull
us out of that place, to that extent,
we become self defeating.
To that extent, we become ineffective.
To that extent, we become aimless.
To that extent, we begin to drift.
To that extent, we have lost our fundamental
foundation.
I just read a quote today in a
book I was reading about some things going
on in the 60s, as I often read
about this and understand.
Climate of the day just happened to be
a quote from Napoleon may have been a
well known quote, but I'd never seen it
before.
It said something to this effect, never distract
the enemy when you see that he's in
the process of destroying himself.
And for many of us, if we're just
allowed to go the way we go, absorbed
and caught up with this world, with life,
with working for God, with doing this, with
good things, etc., etc., the devil can just
kind of let us go.
He doesn't even have to send unusual temptation.
The world doesn't have to come up with
new techniques, because if you just let us
go, we will gradually self destruct because that
which is the most essential, important thing, the
presence of God in our own lives, intimacy
with God in our own lives, relationship with
him coming first and foremost above everything.
That is the thing that is the most
easily challenged.
And especially in a group like us with
ministry mentality and with a heart to go
with a heart to do something for Jesus,
we don't just want to be, quote, pew
sitters.
We don't just want to be attending church
services.
We want our lives to count for God.
There is the great danger that in all
of our desire to recover all kinds of
other things and do all kinds of other
things, we'll miss that which is the foundation
of it all.
There is a place.
There are times in our lives spiritually where
we are locked into God.
There are times in our lives spiritually where
we live for his presence and communion with
him.
There are times in our lives where our
time in the word is so consistent and
rich and our time in prayer is so
consistent and rich and to to go without
communing with God is absolutely unthinkable to us.
There is that place.
And it's something that must be guarded and
it's something when lost that must be covered.
Go with me to Ephesians, excuse me, Revelation,
the second chapter where Jesus addresses the church
of Ephesus.
Revelation, chapter two, sometimes
we go so many months and so many
years away from our first love, so many
months, so many years away from a certain
excitement in the Lord.
So much time goes by while we are
in good services and doing good ministry and
having good devotions with our family and witnessing
on our jobs and seeking to be lights
in our community, doing all those good things.
That so much time can go by that
the reality of who God is, the reality
of what we once have, the reality of
what it is to have Jesus as our
best friend can be lost and we don't
even realize it.
Revelation, too, is a very striking passage and
in many ways is very disturbing.
You'll see why in a moment to the
angel of the church, the congregation in Ephesus,
right?
These are the words of him who holds
the seven stars in his right hand and
walks among the seven golden lampstands.
This is how Jesus describes himself before each
of the seven congregations that he addresses.
He describes himself in a way that is
especially relevant for them.
And he's telling Ephesus, I'm the one that
walks in the midst of the seven congregation
and the leaders are in my hand.
I'm the one that is intimately involved.
I'm right on the inside.
I know your deeds.
Stop there.
That's how he addresses five of the congregations.
He tells them, I know your deeds.
Sometimes that's good news, sometimes that's bad news.
Sometimes when the Lord says, I've been watching
you, your heart rejoices because you know you've
been sacrificing and doing the right thing for
the Lord and refusing to compromise and honoring
Jesus.
And when and you've been wondering, Lord, have
you even been paying attention?
It says, I've been watching other times.
He says, I've been watching you and you
start to tremble.
Because he's seen the things that nobody else
sees.
What does he say to Ephesus?
This is a congregation.
This is a work that Paul was deeply
involved with.
What does he say to Ephesus?
I know your deeds, your hard work and
your perseverance.
Wow.
They were going for it, they were diligent.
How many congregations can you say that to?
I've been watching you.
I know your deeds.
I know all about you.
You're working hard and you're persevering.
And Jesus is not impressed by hype.
Jesus doesn't believe the press report of someone
else.
This is reality.
I know your deeds, your hard work and
your perseverance.
I know that you cannot tolerate wicked men,
that you have tested those who claim to
be apostles but are not and have found
them false.
This was an extraordinary group of people.
They found out who was real and who
was not.
In Acts 20, Paul warned them again and
reminded them.
He met with the elders of the church
of Ephesus, the church of that city.
And he reminded them for three years, day
and night, I've warned you with tears.
And I've told you that savage wolves are
going to rise up from your own midst,
drawing disciples after themselves.
And they won't spare the flock.
And maybe these are some of the very
people about whom Paul spoke and warned.
And the Ephesian believers got it right.
They couldn't tolerate wicked men.
There's something special about this group of people.
Those claimed to be apostles with their false
doctrine, their false miracles, their false whatever, they're
not, they got exposed at Ephesus.
All of Paul's tears paid off.
You have persevered.
He says it twice.
He said they've worked hard and they've persevered.
These people didn't cave in when the going
got rough.
These people didn't back down when persecution arose.
These people had a witness and a testimony.
It's extraordinary.
You have persevered and have endured hardships for
my name.
How many congregations in a city could Jesus
say this to, not to most of the
others?
And then look at what he says.
And you've not grown weary.
Surely these people were on fire.
Surely these people would be examples.
Surely the Lord would just have words of
encouragement only for a hard working, pure hearted,
devoted group of people persevering, suffering for Jesus,
not backing down, not caving in, not quitting,
not giving way, not even growing weary.
Yet, he says, I hold this against you.
Come on, Jesus, are you just nitpicking with
us?
You're trying to find some little fault.
Look at us.
We're working hard.
Look at us.
We're at early morning prayer.
Look at us.
We're fasting one day a week.
Look at us.
We're doing outreach.
Look at us.
We're establishing godly principles in the home.
Look at us.
We've got missionaries around the world.
Look at us.
We're worshiping by the hour.
Look at all the good stuff we're doing.
What are you going to find fault with?
Some little thing, Jesus, or you're going to
just find one little doctrinal thing that needs
adjustment or or or some little thing where
one day we forgot to feed a poor
person?
No, not at all.
Not at all.
That's what's so disturbing about this text.
Yet I hold this against you.
You're forsaking your first love.
Think of it.
You could be hard working for Jesus.
You could be persevering and not growing weary
and enduring hardship for the Savior and exposing
false people and false teaching.
And still backsliding.
And if you can do it as a
congregation, you and I can do it as
individuals.
You can have a thriving ministry.
Your tapes can be going everywhere and impacting
people.
Your worship songs can be translated into 100
languages.
You can have a congregation of 10,000.
You can be considered the godliest person in
your community.
You can have a good family and still
be backsliding.
And beyond all the other things that God
looks at, this is the thing he singles
out the most.
Beyond all the other things he's pointing out
and commending, the thing that hurts him the
most, if he had to choose one or
the other, he'd choose this because everything is
going to flow out of that relationship.
Everything's going to flow out of intimacy with
God.
You've forsaken your first love.
You know, we commonly quote it.
We lost our first love.
I lost my first love.
But it doesn't say lost, it says left,
forsaken.
Some people might think, well, is that how
it's translated in the King James?
You've lost your first love.
No, the King James says left.
It's just a misquotation of ours.
I lost some, I can't find it.
The worst thing to lose, by the way,
is your glasses.
Especially if you really need your glasses, because
when you lose your glasses, you can't find
your glasses.
Some of you know, I used to have
much bigger glasses.
They were easier to find, even though there
wasn't a lot of substance on them, it
was mainly the glasses.
They were much bigger.
So when you put them down somewhere, they're
easier to find.
But then all of my dear friends and
colleagues and co-workers convinced me that I
need these cool glasses, these little glasses.
Not only are they little glasses, this is
the first pair of bifocals I had.
So I don't know which is the focal
and which is the bifocal.
But listen to me, these are too small
for proper bifocals, by the way.
I lose these glasses, you can't find them
anywhere.
Oh, it's tough.
You know, you put these things down, I
lost them.
Where did you put them?
It wasn't forethought, it wasn't like years of
bad habits.
I just put them where I put them
down.
I found that phone job.
Just a personal thing here.
Where did you put the thing down somewhere?
And I can't find it.
I lost it.
Where are your keys?
Keys?
You have the keys now?
I can't believe I lost the keys.
You park in some massive parking lot somewhere
and you forget where your vehicle is and
it's a rental car, so you don't even
remember what the thing looked like.
You're going like 10 different cars.
Sorry, sorry, I didn't know that was yours.
I'm trying to remember which was my car.
I can't believe I lost it.
I don't remember what it looks like, what
model.
I don't know, I just got in, drove,
it was late at night.
I just thought I was over here.
I don't know if this happens to you,
how many times I get picked up at
airports.
You know, you've been traveling for a day
and a half.
You got your luggage a little worn out.
They go, we're just parked right over, I
thought we were over here.
Well, I can't believe how many airports in
the world have been changed.
Everywhere I go, oh, well, they just changed
the airport.
It's not that I parked the car in
the wrong place.
They just changed the airports.
I don't know if this airport's been there
nine million years, though.
Everything's old.
Yeah, I think they just changed the airport.
I've been up and down.
You get in the elevator, up and down
because I lost, can't find the car.
I just lost it somewhere.
Just misplaced it.
I mean, you could be at a gathering,
you know, a park with your friends playing
and you're playing with your kids and the
kids go off and you're holding them one
kid's hand and you get distracted for a
minute, little kids going to play with the
other little kids and where, where'd he go?
Where'd she go?
And you got to take men in the
final because they're with the other kids in
the other part of the park.
And listen to me, you don't do that
with your relationship with Jesus and first love,
you don't lose it.
What a point was, we were like really
close to Jesus and we were, it was
like special, we had this wonderful relationship and
we're intimate and there was this place I
had in God and I was different.
There was a fire, there was a passion,
there was something in me.
There was a hatred of sin.
By the way, I didn't just get very
choked up and emotional.
I just got choked up in the natural
air for a second.
It was something I had, I know it
may have sounded like that in context, but
this happened.
I mean, I had this very special thing
with the Lord and this hatred of sin
and uncleanness, this love for holiness and this
burden for souls and I just had love
to worship and just seek his face.
And I was kind of like a prayer
animal, you know, I just couldn't get enough
prayer and just had to be with God.
I just kind of lost it.
No, we don't lose it and they feel
like it because we become dull, we become
dull and we lose sight of it.
It may feel like that, but in fact,
we forsake it.
We make lifestyle choices, we make daily decisions,
we go in certain directions, and then as
it goes on a week, a month, a
year, five, ten.
We can be so busy for Jesus and
so active for the Lord and doing so
many commendable things and even still keeping our
lives basically pure.
Well, all the while we have been gradually
backsliding from intimacy, backsliding from devotion, backsliding to
closeness with the master.
I always tell folks as we're training them
for the work of ministry, that the most
difficult place to keep your intimacy, the most
difficult circumstances in which you find constant battles
and challenges to your time alone with God.
It's when you are, quote, in full time
ministry.
It's not just because your daily responsibilities don't
end and it can literally be 24-7
that there's a need, that there's a demand,
that there's something that you have to address
and touch and help, but it can be
you're reading the word.
Why?
Because you have to preach next week.
You're reading the word.
Why?
Because you've got to do a discipleship series.
So you're reading the word, you're learning, you're
growing, but it's primarily for others.
Oh, you're praying, you're seeking God, but why?
Oh God, touch the flock.
Oh God, touch the congregation.
Oh God, someone's in need.
That's all important.
That's all part of our prayer, but you
can neglect just the personal, just the relationship,
just the enjoyment of God.
I hold this against you.
You have forsaken your first love.
This is not Jesus being a legalist.
Please hear me.
This is not Jesus trying to find fault
with a devoted group of people.
Maybe you come from a legalistic church background
and you are very used to a fault
finding kind of mentality that nothing you do
is enough.
No service is good enough.
No efforts are strong enough.
There's always something wrong and some spiritual leader
is going to point it out and this
is wrong and this is wrong to always
tear down.
No, this is not what our Savior is
doing.
This is someone speaking out of deep heart
relationship, almost like a wife saying to her
husband, OK, fine.
It's true.
You've always worked hard and you put food
on the table for the family and now
you put aside funds so our kids can
get a college education.
It's true.
You're devoted in so many different ways and
you try to be a good example.
But what's happened to our relationship?
What's happened to the enjoyment of husband and
wife together as one?
What's happened to the love and the romance
of it's just a good working partnership.
There's a desire in God, there's something in
God, the whole reason he created us in
the first place.
It was not just so we worked for
him, but so that we'd be his friends
and his family.
It's so impossible for us to conceive.
Really, there's nothing in our humanity that can
fully understand this, how God, who was God
complete in himself, lacking nothing, needing nothing, somehow
had a need within himself to create us
for fellowship.
He didn't have to.
Do you understand that?
It's not that he was compelled to because
he had read the Bible and saw it
was going to happen.
It's not that he just had this thing
set in motion and it was some inevitability.
It was something that he desired.
We've got to remember that in the midst
of everything we're doing to seek to please
him.
Listen, you know, you've heard from me for
years, themes of revival, themes of Jesus revolution,
radicality for God.
And you hear from our different leaders that
cry for something authentic and New Testament church
and being priestly and apostolic and these different
things.
And we talk about community and we talk
about all these.
It's all important, but it's all totally secondary
to intimacy with him.
All of that flows out of intimacy with
him.
All the vision, all the purpose, all the
drive has to ultimately flow out of the
fact that Jesus, you're everything to us.
And we want to bring glory to you
and please the father.
Many of you know, these last few years,
I've been working on a commentary on the
book of Jeremiah now, by God's grace, the
next two years is as the most major
project I'll be involved with.
And one of the one of the things
that first struck me a few years back
when I started just reading through the text
more carefully and thinking about how it more,
for example, in the second chapter, in the
early parts of the third chapters is God's
sense of just pain and shock at what
his people are doing.
And he even asked him, what have I
done wrong?
What what fault did your father's finding me?
Why did you forsake me?
I mean, he asked these penetrating questions, not
just you forsaken me, you're guilty, but what
did I do wrong that you forsook me?
He calls heaven to witness, just look at
this heavens and be astonished at someone's who
else can God ask to look at this?
They forsaken me and they're going after all
kinds of other lovers, wearing themselves out on
the mountain, here's here's the bride of the
Lord, he talks early in the second chapter
of Jeremiah, how they used to enjoy honeymoon
love together.
And God says, I remember that I think
back and I remember these things about you
and in our early days and how you
followed me in the wilderness and how we
enjoy.
Early days of romance and marriage together, and
now you're just fornicating with all kinds of
other men and you're you're out wearing your
your feet out, you're out barefoot, just looking
for lovers on the hills and thinking, what
is this?
Ezekiel 16, there's the very graphic chapter where
God finds baby Israel kicking in its own
blood in the wilderness and about to die.
And God brings in this little baby girl
and cares for her, nurtures her, and then
as she grows up and matures, she's ready
for marriage.
God beautifully adorns her and then some other
guys start touching her and having her.
The other nations, she starts worshipping idols.
The fundamental thing that brought the destruction of
Jerusalem and the exile of the Jewish people
in Jeremiah's day was idolatry.
Straying from God in relationship with God and
following other gods, and it was spiritual adultery.
This is how God expresses himself here with
a with a broken heart of a jealous
lover.
I hold this against you forsaking your first
love.
What's the good of all the other stuff?
Oh, it's not you throw it out, you
quit doing it, but there's the call to
put first things first and recover that place
in God.
That special place, remember the height from which
you fall.
Remember what it was like, maybe some of
you never had that intimate, close relationship with
Jesus, maybe some of you never had a
walk with the Lord where you could point
back to it, the reality of it, the
wonder of it.
Maybe you've known the Lord, but somehow there
hasn't been that deeper breakthrough.
I tell you, the heart of God is
identical for you and he's calling you to
experience heights in him you've not known.
There are certain things, of course, that are
going to be unique and one time only,
maybe one season in your life only.
And they're not to be repeated over and
over again.
But the reality of the wonder of the
relationship with him and something that we could
rightly call first love is something that, by
God's grace, can be walked in and lived
in and recovered when lost.
It's a shame if we have to keep
thinking back to the old days.
It's a shame if we have to keep
thinking back to prior examples.
I remember Nancy and I were hearing someone
teach over a period of time, someone that
was anointed with a healing ministry, but but
she said something to me.
She said, you know, it's disturbing.
It's probably in the mid to late 80s.
She said every example he gives of a
major healing miracle in his life comes from
the 50s.
He just started to think of it.
It almost seemed that the glory days were
past.
I know there are seasons that will not
always be repeated.
Intense spiritual moves, unusual times of God working,
speaking to people, speaking, acting.
I understand that I'm talking more than anything
about relationship.
First love, that place in God.
I found in my own life certain patterns,
walking with the Lord now just about 31
years, you observe certain things, I journal a
lot.
I noticed.
In the early 90s in particular, I went
back and looked, I had these.
World Youth with a Mission Daytime is they're
just real simple, but they had some neat
quotes in them and in the front, you
had the whole year laid out.
So when I'd be away preaching different places,
I just marked that.
And then whenever I fast, I just mark
those days.
So at one glance, I could see what
my fasting over a year.
And I saw that that after we had
lost a close friend after two and a
half year battle for healing of brain cancer,
after we lost it, I noticed that in
the subsequent years, my time and fasting just
dropped.
I didn't realize it for years, but I
look back and thought there was something aggressive
in me.
There was something just going after it.
The more I hear someone sick, someone's done.
I just want to throw myself in and
see God heal.
And although I thought in my mind I
was still the same, there was a certain
aggression that was taken away.
I don't mean a fleshly aggression.
I mean, just going after God and fasting
and prayer for a breakthrough and some of
the wind got taken out of myself.
I've noticed something else that I can hear
God about corporate things.
That he can move on me with burdens
to write and to preach.
And that in the midst of that, I
can go periods of time without hearing from
him on a personal level.
And you don't even realize it because he's
speaking about these other things.
Oh, God, what are you saying to us
about fire?
Father, what's your birth?
Lord, what's the message you're giving me for
young people?
Lord, are you telling us to establish a
work in New York?
Lord, what's your answer to the financial pressure?
And you're crying out for those community wide
things or worldwide things.
And God's speaking and burdening you and you're
meeting with him and he's touching you.
And it's wonderful.
And yet there's something where we're not just
corporate beings.
We're not just family beings.
We're not just part of the worldwide Jesus
movement.
We're individuals with individual relations.
And there's a place in God that's so
sacred, so precious, and we need to do
what we know how to do to recover.
And there's a spiritual reality to it.
I remember.
About nine years ago, right around Thanksgiving, right
before Thanksgiving, I was in New York City
for several days.
I was just doing some research to fill
in some end notes on a scholarly book
that was going to be published and just
going through some of that.
And then was doing a Jewish outreach and.
I met some people and taking down some
names and people were going to contact and.
And then at the end of it all,
I was going to preach in the Lower
East Side of New York City in a
real bad area.
I spent a few days alone that I
was going to preach there, and I had
this thing in my mind.
If you go in the building.
Don't have your computer and the information, the
disks that I had, the work that I
had done, don't have them in the same
place.
Put the disk in your pocket.
If you leave the computer in the trunk
of the car.
I remember just thinking this and I thought,
you know, I'm going to bring the whole
thing and just it was on my mind.
And I had my journal, which at that
point was not on my computer, handwritten for
the whole year and all my contact information
didn't have in some little palm thing or
PDA or in my cell phone.
I didn't have, you know, just was all
written out.
And then all the people I had met
that I was going to send literature, that
was written out.
And then there was a manuscript I had
been going through by hand and making notes
in the margins, and that was in the
trunk of the car.
And I had the disks in the laptop
computer.
I thought, I'm just going to bring the
bags in with me.
And then at the end of the meeting,
someone went out, got my garment bag.
I changed into casual clothes because I was
going to drive back four hours to Maryland
where we live and went out with the
pastor and his wife just to get a
couple of slices of pizza, went and put
my stuff back in the trunk of the
car and drove home.
I put my stuff in the car first,
then had pizza with these folks right across
the street from where the car was, drove
home, got home about two in the morning,
opened the trunk of my car and it
was empty.
I closed it again.
I worship the Lord a little bit.
I thought, okay, this is not really happening.
I opened it, computer's gone, data's gone, all
the work of those days is gone.
I couldn't believe it.
I got down on my knees at two
in the morning on our driveway in Maryland
just to worship God and say, I'm going
to worship you anyway, Father, you're still just
as good, just as faithful.
I went inside, woke Nancy up and I
said, I can't believe it.
I said, you know, the thing was stolen
out of the trunk of the car.
And she said, well, what about your other
stuff?
And I thought, and I ran back down
the journal, everything for the whole year.
It's close to December now.
It's past mid-November, so the whole year
and all the everything I had.
And I'd just gone to Korean preach prior
to that.
And the Koreans took me to this place
where they made these suits for me just
as a gift, like these custom suits, which
I didn't know were really expensive, the garment
bag, everything was gone.
I couldn't believe, I just felt so disoriented.
And then it's Thanksgiving.
And I remember calling John on the phone,
John Cobb, as we were friends and co
-workers in Maryland.
I did.
You ever lose stuff like that?
You just feel kind of disoriented.
It's got all your information.
And so I just, I remember I called
friends in New York City.
I called Dave Wilkerson's assistant because I was
preaching there all the time and his administrative
assistant.
And I said, I said, Barb, I said,
I can't believe it.
I, you know, I put this stuff in
the trunk and I lied.
And she just said, she even batted an
eye last.
She just said, you never put it in
the trunk in the sight of other people.
She said, if you do that, then you
get in the car, drive it and park
it somewhere else.
This gave me a little lesson for New
York.
Of course, she was caring, but it was,
it was just funny.
Just very matter of fact, that was your
error that you went in and out of
the trunk in the sight of other people.
So someone picked the lock and took your
stuff.
In broad New York nightlife.
And I remember I just felt disoriented.
I felt kind of aimless because all the
data and all the stuff and the journaling
and the contacts and so much of your
life order is stored up in these things.
I was just talking to John after Thanksgiving
that Thursday night.
And he said, hey, you want me to
just come over and pray with you?
Because I just was aimless, just trying to
break through.
I was so annoyed and bothered that I'd
lost all the stuff and had to just
get back focused and on track and recover
some of the things that may seem minor.
It wasn't, you know, a death or something,
but still just something was funny.
And he said, you want me to come
over and pray?
I said, you serious now?
Night of Thanksgiving?
He said, yeah, I'll come over.
He said, let me just finish up with
family.
And it was late, maybe midnight or something.
And I was in the basement of our
house praying.
And I just like I couldn't break through.
And the moment he came in the room
and we agreed, it's just this joy hit.
I knew everything would be fine.
Amazing.
You know, and in computer days, if you
lose a computer one day and insurance pays
for the next and you buy one the
next day, I
ended up getting everything recovered with insurance plus
a better computer.
But the thing that was more important and
the reason I told this was just there
was something that happened spiritually when the two
of us came together.
It was almost like the place was there
again, the access, the openness, the reality, the
something was different spiritually.
And just in the midst of that encouragement
came instantly and faith rose instantly.
And I wasn't disoriented anymore because I was
plugged back rightly in with God and all
the other stuff was secondary.
And strangely, that example came to mind today,
just as I was thinking about this driving
up that reality of a spiritual place, almost
like a spiritual bubble in which you can
live.
And I believe that most of us here
tonight, just in the course of normal life,
the majority this is not by word of
revelation or wisdom.
This is just spiritual common sense.
The majority of us here tonight would fit
in with the category of those who have
forsaken their first love and who have somehow
left that place.
No, you can't live 24 hours a day
in perfect communion with God.
And yes, there are times when you're just
caught up in worship and Jesus, you're wonderful.
And all of a sudden from the next
room, you and the reality is you're going
to have to break that.
You may not carry that communion out with
you.
You know, as you as you change the
poor little baby that's suffering from severe diarrhea
for the 98th time that day, you may
not just go, oh, praise the Lord.
Jesus is here.
Little one, don't cry.
Hallelujah.
That may not happen.
May that happen that you're having a miserable
day with your coworkers on the job and
they're just nasty and unclean and foul and
unappreciative and ungrateful.
You just had an awesome time in the
word that morning.
You're you're praising God as you're driving in
the car and punching it.
It may be that that gets challenged in
the real world.
All of you who have a burden for
Israel and love the Jewish people.
Sometimes that bubble gets burst and that bird
disappears the moment you actually try to reach
out to some Jews in New York or
Israel.
Oh, we can be so idealistic and I'm
not talking about living in some bubble like
that.
Time to get up.
Hallelujah.
Time to get up.
Glory.
Just tell them I'm doing the king's business.
Tell Burger King I found another king.
You can't you can't live like that.
OK, we understand that you can't have the
perfect atmosphere in the room at all time.
Honey, you broke the atmosphere when you came
home.
I feel the world on you.
Well, I work out in the world.
Sorry, the guys at the auto mechanic place
don't don't like the same praise music that
you like.
I'm not talking about being artificial or superficial
or unrealistic.
Have you recovered your first love?
May I tell you about my savior?
It may not always be like that, but
there is something very real and very undeniable
and very precious that most of us leave
behind, often because of ministry, often because of
godly principles, often just because of the pressures
of life and sometimes because of outright temptation
and sin and yielding and compromise.
But there is a place.
There's something we must take hold of.
There's something we must grow into.
There's a place to which God is calling
us.
I know it.
You say, well, maybe you're preaching for your
own life and your own heart.
You bet I am.
And I know it's not just for me.
Remember the height from which you have fallen.
Think back.
You know, sometimes our perceptions change and our
view of reality changes and we have to
jar ourselves.
I've told other people in ministry, get a
tape of yourself preaching with passion and fire
and hunger in the early days and see
if it convicts you.
If it convicts you, you think, man, I've
become professional.
I'm slick.
I know how to do it now.
Or look at some of the words you
wrote in your journal, some of the entries.
Like, man, I was really kind of like
crazy eyed for Jesus.
Now, now I've grown up.
Remember the height from which you've fallen.
Now, look at this.
We're almost done.
Repent and do the things you did at
first.
Wow.
Repent.
It's because of sin that we leave that
place.
It's because of sin that we leave our
first love.
It's not anybody's fault.
It's not life's fault.
It's my fault.
It's your fault.
So you don't know what I've been through.
I'm not being unsympathetic.
I'm not saying that we just kind of
drift our way through life carefree for Jesus.
I'm not saying some of you haven't been
battered and attacked and gone through extraordinary pressure
at certain times.
I have as well.
And maybe some of you could share things.
If we heard it, we'd be amazed.
You're still in the faith.
And yet, ultimately, God is sufficient for us.
And if I forsake my first love, it's
not my church's fault.
My friends fault, leaders fault, family's fault, co
-workers fault, roommates fault, spouses fault, children's fault,
parents fault.
It's my fault.
The good news is God calls us back.
Remember the height from which you've fallen.
Repent and do the things you did at
first.
If you do not repent, I'll come to
you and remove your land stand from its
place.
In other words, to a church, to a
congregation.
You won't be anymore, is what he's saying.
But you have this in your favor.
You hate the practices of the Nicolaitans, which
I also hate.
I think he was so intimate with Ephesus
that he was not just going to let
them be a group without him at the
foundation.
He who has ears, let him hear what
the Spirit says to the church, is to
him who overcomes, I'll give the right to
eat from the tree of life, which is
in the paradise of God.
Here's the best news of it all.
Do the things you did at first.
In other words, there can be simple methods,
or you could say simple actions that can
recover and restore.
Here's a family where kids are drifting.
Seems that the respect they had for mom
and dad, the love they had for mom
and dad is not there, and parents get
away, step back and think and say, wait
a second, these kids used to be everything
to them.
Spending time with them used to be our
priority.
Getting away, doing things with them used to
be number one.
Now it's kind of, we've been the last
three years just so busy with all the
things that we thought were important, we've neglected
our kids.
Do what you did at first.
It's an amazing thing.
Spend the time.
Make the effort.
Water the flower that's wilting, and something happens.
Husband and wife ready to walk out on
each other, knowing it's sin to divorce, but
on the edge of it, hey, what was
it that brought you together in the first
place?
What was it like in the early days?
You didn't have to put it in your
day timer, call home at noon and say
hi.
You didn't have to have an alarm go
off and remind you that it was an
anniversary or a birthday or a special day.
You look for excuses to find time together.
Do the things you did at first.
I was talking in the natural, now in
the spiritual.
Be as ruthless with your schedule now as
you were back then.
Look at everything else that would get in
the way.
I remember years ago challenging myself with a
question.
Why is it I have to answer the
emails?
Why is it I have to keep my
appointments with people and yet I neglect my
appointment with God?
Why is it that all the other things
that are pulling in the calls and responsibilities
and I'm not just talking about daily work
where you have to be at your job
or taking care of kids in the house
and you have to do certain things?
I'm talking about things that we choose to
do even beyond that or extra work we
choose to do for extra money, for extra
lifestyle, whatever it is.
Why is it that all those things, the
knock at the door, the ring of the
phone, those can come first and that which
matters the most gets neglected?
We need to change our priorities.
We need above everything, above everything to be
people who are deeply in love with Jesus.
People who really have God as their best
friend.
And I assure you on the authority of
His word, if you'll do the things you
did at first, if you'll prioritize your time
with Him, if you'll obey His voice with
gladness the way you used to, if you'll
shut out the other voices and make His
voice preeminent, you will see change come.
There is a place, there's a deep desperation
in my own heart rising more to get
back into that place to the dimensions I've
left it and to recover aspects of first
love that have been gone.
Oh sure, there's a deepening through the years
and you grow in wisdom and God puts
a lot of other things in you and
you're serious for Him in so many ways.
I'm not trying to balance and juggle everything
at once and think it all has to
be equal, you know, total faith, total love,
total passion, total joy, total wholeness, total radicality,
total sacrifice, total revolution, revival, authentic community, and
get it all at once.
That's not going to happen.
I'm talking about the fundamental.
I'm talking about putting first things first.
I believe the Spirit is calling us to
recover our first love, to dive into a
relationship with Jesus deeper than we have perhaps
in many years.
Stand to your feet with me.
May it be that as we spend time
in prayer and fasting, that above all that
we deepen our own relationship with the Lord.
I'm going to pray and if this is
relevant, if God's speaking to you, feel free
to spend some time in the presence of
the Lord at these altars.
It's just good to step away from other
things and go after the Lord.
If you want to have conversations, please, please,
please, I urge you be respectful of those
around you that are going after the Lord.
And if you want to talk and hang
out, we've got the whole hall around the
building just to spend time doing that.
Father, we love you and honor you.
May your word hit home.
May we not lose sight of what you're
saying.
May I, may each of us take it
to heart in Jesus name.
If God's speaking to you and you want
to spend some time before him, go ahead
and do it.
God bless you.
I just want to remind you that he
will answer, that he will answer.
I just remind you that for many of
us, the telltale sign that we've forsaken our
first love is that things that used to
convict us don't convict us anymore.
Things that used to burden us don't burden
us anymore.
If that's you, come up and receive mercy
from the hand of God, but be honest
with him so he can do a deep
work.
Amen.