Vital Signs
Part 1- Intimacy With God
Pastor Ryan Akers
Me- What excites you? What gets your heart pumping and your blood racing? What is it that keeps you up all night because you are too excited to sleep?
Hunting- thrill of the kill Roller Coasters- anticipation of the climb Sports- rivalry, unknown Book or movie or TV show- Star Wars
Many things excite us. We all get excited about different things. What excites me probably won’t excite you and vice versa. But we all have something that drives us, that gets us up each morning. It’s not always a job or money. There are things that we just love and are passionate about that we may be good at and gives us purpose.
We- Usually what we love becomes what we worship. It is the thing that we will live for. (Dress like it, toys, subscriptions, movie tickets/stand in line for hours, computer backgrounds.)
Old shirts- B-ball is life, the rest is just details. Ryan’s – “Jesus is life, the rest is just basketball.”
There is no denying that many of you here know God but it’s hard to find many with an obsession with God. Not fanatics. But people who are consumed with Holy Spirit. How can we make God come alive to us like hunting or roller coasters or sports comes alive to us? Why do people act like God is boring? How can we make God something that we worship with every fiber in us?
What made Moses so excited he would take on a Pharaoh? What made David so excited that he would take on a giant? What made Daniel so excited that he would sleep with lions? What made Shad rack, Me shack, and Abendigo so excited that they would face the fire? What made Peter take on the guards? What made Esther take on a corrupt leader? What made Noah take on Nature? What makes millions of missionaries leave their homes and their families to put their lives on the line for poor third world people? What made Jesus take on the cross?
Worship- They knew exactly what they were created for and it became the very essence of who they were. They understood that life and purpose is never found in the things around us. Life is found in the understanding that we were created to worship God. We were created to have a relationship with Him. These people had their attitude and their heart in line with God’s heart.
You see an incredible example of passion for God, right heart and attitude towards God in Psalm 27- David writing. Hebrew- Tihillim- praises, overall teaching is that God is over all things. Write Psalms during different good and bad times in his life.
God- Psalm 27
Vs. 1-3- David expresses his confidence in God.
When we don’t trust God, we develop anxiety and fear. When there is worry in us when we feel like we are losing control then we panic. Normally we don’t run to God we blame God. David runs to God even through war and pain. These things give him confidence not fear. He doesn’t blame God he puts more hope in God. Less of me and more of Him. More of me says, “why is this happening to me, what have I done to deserve this?”
Less of me and more of Him says, Paul- “I delight in my weaknesses”, Moses- “Lord I stutter.” God says “Who made your mouth? Moses spoke with confidence. Its confidence knowing that there is nothing that will happen in this life that will keep me from the love of Christ. We are more than conquerors.
Romans 8:31, 37
Vs. 4- David was King, rich, popular ruler, preached the Word of God, yet He only wanted one thing. To be with God.
I may lose everything but I still have God. I may get fired, lose my family, my house, my money, but if I have God then I will still have Joy. He is sufficient. He is all I need. David met his creator and he was never the same. He forgot about his physical wants and focused on his spiritual needs. God’s goals became his goals. He became a man after God’s own heart.
I believe that it is impossible for us to talk about knowing God and loving God but remain unchanged by God. How can we love and know God yet not have a passion for him. Not be moving past the same things we have been struggling with for years. Intimacy with God demands change in us.
God is an adventure and I feel sorry for those who think that what the world offers is fun and exciting because they obviously haven’t lived for God. Living for God each and everyday is the adventure.
Putting your hope in God is exciting. Trusting that God will provide, that your path in life will be made clear that your enemies will be overcome by faith is the adrenaline rush. David knew that. He lived with his eyes wide open and his feet ready to run. When you take on that lifestyle then you develop the passion that so many before us had.
Vs. 5-6 It’s not easy. In fact it will be extremely hard and at times painful. “Love is not the absence of pain. If anything it is the promise of pain.” Erwin McManus
It takes discipline to maintain this passion. Our daily responsibilities can easily overtake our most important priority. David knew this. But he didn’t let all the pressures of being a king hurt his relationship with Christ. His desire was to dwell in the house of the lord forever. David is not talking about moving into a church. He is speaking about his desire for an intimate relationship with God everywhere he went.
“Worship is meant to bring us to the throne of God that we might grow in our understanding of Him. In providing for us life that would never end, God was giving Himself to us. If worship doesn’t bring us into the presence of God through His Son, then one of two things has gone wrong: Either we are worshipping the wrong thing or we’re worshipping for the wrong reason.” Unknown
God and god alone must be what we worship. We must do all things for his glory. I Cor. 10:31
That means, according to Paul, we can give glory to God when we are eating or sleeping or working. When your boss is on you again, you praise God and ask for guidance. When you children are misbehaving again you give God glory that he has blessed you with these children and pray for wisdom to teach them through discipline. When an unexpected bill comes in you praise God that he has provided a job for you so that that bill can be paid.
Psalms is the biggest book in the bible and it is full of the passion that all of us should have.
You- When you read this book you can sum up two desires of David.
1. To see the beauty of the Lord. The Hebrew, "to behold the beauty of the Lord," is a saying expressing the absolute delight which gazing continually at God’s glory brings to us. It is beyond words and must be experienced to be understood.
2. To seek Him in His temple. The idea is to actively and passionately pursue God that we might know Him better and enjoy Him more. It is the desire described in Psalm 42:1 -2
These two desires are meant to have an intense impact on us as believers. They are meant for us to have a decreasing satisfaction with the things of the world and an insatiable thirst for God. Sermon Central Message
That passion and Joy can’t happen while we still seek control of our own lives. Until we fully release everything to God then we will still be subject to a life of worry, of fear, of blame. We will continue to hang on to sins that we just can’t quite let go of. And we won’t understand the Joy and confidence that these men and women experienced.
But when God gains full control of your life then you can live eyes wide open. You can see things you never saw before. You can overcome with confidence all obstacles between you and our creator. When you let go and let God you will for the first time in your life experience peace.
Take This Home: No God No peace, Know God, know peace.
