Search Me, O God Series

All right. We are continuing our series Dangerous Prayers, and I'm absolutely enjoying it. But before we dig into the service, I just want to acknowledge again that we are a multisite church with six locations in Minnesota, one in Spain, one in Swaziland, an online group that watches us all the time. And I'm just thanking God for what he's doing. We are praying about more campuses, and we are celebrating that with this technology we can right now have our other campuses watching and tuning in and being a part of this. So as a celebration of all that God's doing and say hi to all the other campuses, let's just show our joy and appreciation for what God is going, and let's clap and say welcome to all the other campuses. Can we do that? It's all good. (Clapping.)

I'm just blown away with what God is doing. The other day I was in Valencia at our campus there. It was packed. We are trying to figure out where do we go from here, what do we do, and that hasn't always been the case. It's summer. If you think Minnesotans disappear in the summer, you should see Spaniards. They are like, "It's hot, we are out of here. Good night." So it was packed. And so that one is growing. Our Edina area campus is just bursting at the seams. We have prayer and plans for a couple more next year. So thank God for all he's doing.

Now as we are in this series Dangerous Prayers, I have enjoyed it because it stretched us, and it is one of those series that is kind of hitting us. How many know what I'm talking about? It hits you. Maybe hurts a little, but it hurts in a good way. It is like having a workout and being sore afterwards, but knowing that you're being built up and you're going in the right direction. That's what this feels like. Now, it has been said about pastors that our job is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. And I think that's what we are doing in this series. Some of you are like, "Oooh, that kind of got me."

And I do want to give a shout out to our ladies in the church. A couple of weeks ago I preached pretty hard to the men. And I said, you know, "You've got to take care of the ladies or it hinders your prayer," and "You're the thermal mug and she is the teacup," and "Come on, take care and be nice."

And the ladies, instead of coming up to me and saying, "That's right, way to get the guys," no kidding, I had probably close to three dozen ladies come up to me and say, "Where's our message, the hard one? Where are you going to give us the hard message to tell us how to live so that we can be like you really took it to the guys. When are you going to take it to us?"

And I was like, "Okay, I'll work on it. All right!"

One lady came up to me and she said, "After you preached that message my husband left in tears bawling." And she goes, "Later on that week he washed my feet and said, 'I want to be a man of God that takes care of you.'" And she said, "I started crying, thinking I want to be a woman of God that's worthy to have her feet washed." And she said, "Just tell me how to be the woman of God that's worthy of having my feet washed, because my husband is changing and I want to match what's going on in his life."

So this is what God is doing in this series, and I thank God for this that we are growing and being challenged. And today is another one that's going to hit you, and your flesh is going to rebel against this one. When I tell you what this prayer is, your flesh is going to rebel immediately and say, "Not for you. Don't take this one too serious. This is not a prayer. That one is dangerous. Don't do it."

Now don't listen to your flesh. Listen to what the Spirit of God is going to say to you, because the prayer we're going to look at today is found in Psalm 139. And I'll tell what you it is before we read it. It's just this it can be two words or four words Search me. If you want it as four words, it's Search Me, O God. You're going to ask God to search you and to look inside you and see if there is anything that needs to go. You're going to go and say, "Search me. Put the spotlight on. Look at my life, God, and take a look." And, again, your flesh is like, "No, don't do that."