PCP Blessings:Hey, this is Pastor John Ryan Cantu from PNEUMA Church in Houston, Texas.
PCP Blessings:Thank you for listening to the message today.
PCP Blessings:I hope that it blesses you and all those that you share it with.
PCP Blessings:God bless you.
PCP Blessings:Amen.
PCP Blessings:She called y'all out with that one.
PCP Blessings:Stay standing real quick as you turn open up your Bibles to Exodus chapter 33.
PCP Blessings:Amen.
PCP Blessings:Praise God.
PCP Blessings:Anybody excited for what God is going to do through this children's ministry?
PCP Blessings:We have seen just blessings over blessings in every one of our ministries,
PCP Blessings:and we know that God is going to continue to do His work.
PCP Blessings:He's not done with us.
PCP Blessings:And praise the Lord for His word this morning.
PCP Blessings:Pastor Danny spoke a word that was very much, I'm not even surprised anymore,
PCP Blessings:but very much in line with this word that God has for you this morning.
PCP Blessings:And if you have your Bibles, Exodus 33, 1 through 3, give me one second.
PCP Blessings:Hold on.
PCP Blessings:Let's put this on real quick.
PCP Blessings:Lord, be with the Astros tonight, Father God.
PCP Blessings:Give us favor, Lord, and open up our hearts and our minds, my God, to receive your word this morning, Father.
PCP Blessings:In Jesus' name we pray, amen.
PCP Blessings:Amen.
PCP Blessings:Come on.
PCP Blessings:Exodus 33, 1 through 3, you there?
PCP Blessings:Amen.
PCP Blessings:It says, in the Lord said to Moses, depart, go up from here, you and the people whom you have brought up out of the land of Egypt,
PCP Blessings:to which I swore to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob saying to your offspring, I will give it,
PCP Blessings:and I will send an angel before you, and I will drive out the Canaanites and the Amorites and the Hittites and the Parasites
PCP Blessings:and the Hivites and the Jebusites.
PCP Blessings:Go up to a land flowing with milk and honey, but I will not go among you, lest I consume you on the way,
PCP Blessings:for you are a stiff-necked people.
PCP Blessings:Amen.
PCP Blessings:And the energy in the room just, you may be seated this morning.
PCP Blessings:Praise God.
PCP Blessings:Anybody happy to be in the house of God?
PCP Blessings:Amen.
PCP Blessings:I want to give God thanks just for another year of life for my wife.
PCP Blessings:She turned 35 this Friday.
PCP Blessings:Looking finer every year.
PCP Blessings:Amen.
PCP Blessings:And yesterday we went to Six Flags for Leila.
PCP Blessings:She'll be turning eight this Wednesday.
PCP Blessings:So it's an expensive month for us.
PCP Blessings:So if y'all want to bless us, you can.
PCP Blessings:But the Lord has tugged on my heart this week to speak on the subject of blessings.
PCP Blessings:How many of us don't desire to be blessed by God?
PCP Blessings:Amen.
PCP Blessings:And you know, it's not just a spiritual or a hopeful thing to say that the Lord wants to bless his people.
PCP Blessings:It's a biblical and a theological truth.
PCP Blessings:God wants you to be blessed.
PCP Blessings:He wants you to be blessed.
PCP Blessings:Now, before you go buying like lottery tickets, we need to understand what that means to be blessed.
PCP Blessings:Because we have an Americanized view of blessings.
PCP Blessings:If a preacher were to come up here and say the Lord is getting ready to pour blessings over this church,
PCP Blessings:our minds immediately go to resources and money and people and influence and expansion.
PCP Blessings:In fact, I got a word this morning from a sister that said, God is about to bless you with money.
PCP Blessings:I'm like, all right, I'll be ready.
PCP Blessings:But that's kind of what we think about when we think of blessings.
PCP Blessings:When you pray, Lord bless my family.
PCP Blessings:What exactly are you praying for?
PCP Blessings:What does it look like to have a blessed life?
PCP Blessings:Jesus opens up Matthew 5, his sermon on the mountain with what's known as the Beatitudes.
PCP Blessings:And the Beatitudes are blessings.
PCP Blessings:And so Jesus opens up with the sermon with the series of blessings.
PCP Blessings:Now, he doesn't define the word blessing because blessing can be a lot of things,
PCP Blessings:but he does define what a blessed life looks like.
PCP Blessings:And it's very different than what we would imagine.
PCP Blessings:So verse 3, he says,
PCP Blessings:The kingdom of heaven is the blessing.
PCP Blessings:He says,
PCP Blessings:Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted.
PCP Blessings:Comfort is the blessing.
PCP Blessings:Blessed are the meek.
PCP Blessings:They shall inherit the earth.
PCP Blessings:Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.
PCP Blessings:They will be satisfied.
PCP Blessings:Blessed are the merciful for they shall receive mercy.
PCP Blessings:Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.
PCP Blessings:Blessed are the peacemakers.
PCP Blessings:They shall be called sons of God.
PCP Blessings:Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness's sake.
PCP Blessings:For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
PCP Blessings:So nowhere in here does he say blessed are the wealthy,
PCP Blessings:for they will have an abundance of resources.
PCP Blessings:He doesn't say blessed are the people with power and the people with influence,
PCP Blessings:for they shall rule the earth.
PCP Blessings:He doesn't say blessed are the big churches,
PCP Blessings:or blessed are the influencers and the famous.
PCP Blessings:I'm not saying that those don't constitute blessings.
PCP Blessings:The Bible says that Job was blessed with wealth,
PCP Blessings:and Solomon was blessed with great wealth.
PCP Blessings:And it also doesn't mean that if you're broke,
PCP Blessings:you're automatically blessed.
PCP Blessings:You might just be broke because you can't manage a budget, right?
PCP Blessings:And God actually does have more for you.
PCP Blessings:But what I want you to walk out of here with today is the understanding
PCP Blessings:that a blessing isn't defined by you and me.
PCP Blessings:It's defined by God.
PCP Blessings:I can give you an idea of what I would like my life to look like.
PCP Blessings:But even if I had everything I ever wanted,
PCP Blessings:if God wanted none of it for me,
PCP Blessings:I can't say that I'm blessed.
PCP Blessings:And I believe that there's people in the room today.
PCP Blessings:I know it.
PCP Blessings:People wondering where their blessing is,
PCP Blessings:because when God said,
PCP Blessings:you were gonna be blessed, he didn't say with what.
PCP Blessings:Man, you know, the Lord has given me word before to speak to people.
PCP Blessings:He would say, tell this person that I'm about to bless them.
PCP Blessings:And that is one of the things that I'm like, God, I don't know.
PCP Blessings:That's super vague, you know?
PCP Blessings:Like if you want to make somebody cry in the presence of God,
PCP Blessings:just whisper in their ear,
PCP Blessings:the Lord is about to bless you, right?
PCP Blessings:And they will fall to their knees and I'll receive it, Lord.
PCP Blessings:And I'm like, God, I don't want to sound false profite
PCP Blessings:or prosperity, gospel-y.
PCP Blessings:Those aren't words, but like, he would tell,
PCP Blessings:I would really feel that tug on my heart,
PCP Blessings:go tell this person that I'm about to do something in their life.
PCP Blessings:And I'm like, God, give me more information.
PCP Blessings:What is, what, what are you gonna do in their life?
PCP Blessings:And I realize that when we hear those words,
PCP Blessings:the Lord is about to bless you.
PCP Blessings:We automatically interpret it, the word blessing,
PCP Blessings:in the way that we hope it to me.
PCP Blessings:But I think that if we open up our hearts more to what God wants to do,
PCP Blessings:instead of what we want him to do,
PCP Blessings:we will be more in tune with the blessings when they begin to manifest,
PCP Blessings:we'll begin to see what they are.
PCP Blessings:There are people in this congregation who God wants to bless with more of his spirit.
PCP Blessings:God wants to give you more of himself in you.
PCP Blessings:He wants to produce fruit in you, right?
PCP Blessings:And so, and so that blessing that God wants to bless you with,
PCP Blessings:it might come in the form of faith.
PCP Blessings:And so you're saying, well, God, why am I in this season of testing?
PCP Blessings:Where is this blessing of which you spoke?
PCP Blessings:And God is saying, you're living in it.
PCP Blessings:You're being stressed right now.
PCP Blessings:You don't see it, but you are learning how to trust me
PCP Blessings:in ways that you never did before.
PCP Blessings:You are calling to me when before you would call to everybody else.
PCP Blessings:You are learning how to be still in my presence and withstand the storms.
PCP Blessings:That is the blessing that I have for you.
PCP Blessings:Well, why the cancer, God, when you said that blessings were coming,
PCP Blessings:what if the cancer is the thing that produced the blessing?
PCP Blessings:We went to eat with Haiti and Herbert last week.
PCP Blessings:I don't think Haiti's teaching the kids, but she was talking about her testimony of her cancer,
PCP Blessings:how last year she didn't understand why she was going through,
PCP Blessings:what she was going through, probably the hardest year of her life.
PCP Blessings:But now she's able to look back and realize, man, I am now offering hope to people
PCP Blessings:who are going through the same thing.
PCP Blessings:I don't know what your blessing is, but I know that God truly desires blessings for his people.
PCP Blessings:And so if I had a biblical definition for the word blessing,
PCP Blessings:I would say that it's the favor of God over your life.
PCP Blessings:That's what a blessing is.
PCP Blessings:It is the favor of God over your life.
PCP Blessings:If I am favored by God, I will be blessed by God.
PCP Blessings:And if I am not favored by God, I will not be blessed.
PCP Blessings:In theology, there's this concept called common grace.
PCP Blessings:And common grace is the grace that God has bestowed to all his people,
PCP Blessings:all creation, regardless of their salvation.
PCP Blessings:We are all blessed with oxygen to breathe.
PCP Blessings:We are all blessed with the warmth of the sun and the coldness of the night.
PCP Blessings:Jesus sums it up by saying, God makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good
PCP Blessings:and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.
PCP Blessings:Now I can't speak for you, but that's not the type of blessing I'm satisfied with.
PCP Blessings:I'm grateful for it.
PCP Blessings:Thank you, Lord, for the sun.
PCP Blessings:Thank you, Lord, for the rain.
PCP Blessings:But I want the favor.
PCP Blessings:I want the favor of God with me over my life.
PCP Blessings:I want the presence of God in my decision making.
PCP Blessings:Everywhere I go, listen, I want to know that God is not only walking behind me
PCP Blessings:to protect me from my stupidity.
PCP Blessings:I want to know that he is walking in front of me because he's leading me there.
PCP Blessings:If God isn't with me, it's because he doesn't want it for me.
PCP Blessings:I remember 12 years ago, almost to the date, I sent a message to my father-in-law.
PCP Blessings:Out of nowhere, I don't think I had ever texted him before in my life.
PCP Blessings:And I sent him this text message saying, hey, I like to talk to you about something, quote-unquote, something.
PCP Blessings:And so he probably already knew what it was about.
PCP Blessings:I said, I'd like to stop by your house and talk to you.
PCP Blessings:And so I coordinated with Melissa's sisters at the time, which she wasn't going to be there.
PCP Blessings:And I went and I sat down in front of my now father-in-law, mother-in-law.
PCP Blessings:And I didn't beat around the bush.
PCP Blessings:I just went there.
PCP Blessings:I was like, I'm here to hopefully get your blessing to marry your daughter.
PCP Blessings:And thankfully, he said, it's about time.
PCP Blessings:I've been together forever.
PCP Blessings:And so I shook his hand.
PCP Blessings:I was out of there in 10 minutes.
PCP Blessings:All right, all right.
PCP Blessings:I'm short and sweet.
PCP Blessings:Just like my waiting ceremony.
PCP Blessings:Short and sweet.
PCP Blessings:I'm trying to be there all day.
PCP Blessings:But I wanted his blessing.
PCP Blessings:Like, that was a true, like that was a desire of mine.
PCP Blessings:I wanted, I wanted to walk out of there seeing a sense of joy on his face because his daughter was about to hit the jackpot, right?
PCP Blessings:But I wanted his blessing not only out of respect for him.
PCP Blessings:That was a part of it.
PCP Blessings:But I wanted it also for my peace.
PCP Blessings:I wanted to know going into this marriage that he was for it, that he was going to support us.
PCP Blessings:You know, had he said, well, you can do whatever you want, your adults, but I don't approve of it.
PCP Blessings:I would have walked out of there defeated.
PCP Blessings:I don't, I didn't want him just to say, sure, do what you want.
PCP Blessings:I wanted his support.
PCP Blessings:I wanted him to embrace me as a part of his family.
PCP Blessings:I wanted him to be able to trust me that I was going to take care of his daughter.
PCP Blessings:I wanted him to be happy for his daughter.
PCP Blessings:I wanted him to pay for a little bit of the wedding.
PCP Blessings:That's support.
PCP Blessings:That's the blessing.
PCP Blessings:I wanted, I wanted to have the favor of my father-in-law over any other guy that Melissa could have married.
PCP Blessings:I didn't want an, ah, you'll do.
PCP Blessings:I guess I wanted his favor.
PCP Blessings:Now, a lot of times we go through life having the approval of God, but not having the favor of God.
PCP Blessings:And we have mistaken approval for blessing.
PCP Blessings:Well, I'm blessed because I got the car loan.
PCP Blessings:I'm blessed because I got the house.
PCP Blessings:I'm blessed because I got the job, but just because God approved of it, approved it, doesn't mean that he blessed it.
PCP Blessings:Doesn't mean that he's with you in it.
PCP Blessings:And we get this confused a lot because we think that a yes is a yes from God.
PCP Blessings:God is sovereign.
PCP Blessings:God will allow you to walk off a cliff if he wants you.
PCP Blessings:But who are we to say that was God?
PCP Blessings:Thank you for my blessing.
PCP Blessings:We call the approval of God often the blessings of God.
PCP Blessings:And we have to look, you know, we, we, we have a lot of people who look at their lives, right?
PCP Blessings:And, and you look at their lives and it looks like you've, you've got a pretty good life.
PCP Blessings:It looks like the marriage is good.
PCP Blessings:It looks like the money is good.
PCP Blessings:It looks like, you know, they've got it all together and maybe all of the above is true.
PCP Blessings:But then they wonder where the presence of God has gone from them.
PCP Blessings:I got all these things together.
PCP Blessings:I got all my ducks in a row.
PCP Blessings:But where's my anointing?
PCP Blessings:Where is the rena word of God?
PCP Blessings:Why can't I hear from God?
PCP Blessings:Where is the joy?
PCP Blessings:Where is my freedom?
PCP Blessings:Where is my peace?
PCP Blessings:Why am I still angry in the midst of having all these things?
PCP Blessings:It could be because you have mistaken God's blessings for the things that he's just allowed you to have.
PCP Blessings:And as people of God, any people of God here this morning?
PCP Blessings:Who am I talking to?
PCP Blessings:Okay.
PCP Blessings:Look, as people of God, we shouldn't be satisfied with just the approval of God.
PCP Blessings:We should desire the favor, the favor of God.
PCP Blessings:Jesus said, Lord Father, if you will take this cup from me, I don't want this.
PCP Blessings:I don't want to have to do this.
PCP Blessings:But then he says, but hold on, let your will be done, not my will.
PCP Blessings:Because even though I want the thing that I'm asking for, what I want even more than the thing that I'm asking for is your favor over my life.
PCP Blessings:I want your plan to be done in my life.
PCP Blessings:I don't want to lead my own life.
PCP Blessings:I want you to lead it.
PCP Blessings:Church, God's presence.
PCP Blessings:I want you to hear this.
PCP Blessings:This is like my whole sermon.
PCP Blessings:These five words.
PCP Blessings:God's presence is the blessing.
PCP Blessings:That is the whole message behind this passage.
PCP Blessings:God said to Abraham, I will bless you and I will bless your descendants.
PCP Blessings:And through you, all the families of the earth will be blessed.
PCP Blessings:Now on the surface, God was talking about land.
PCP Blessings:He was talking about making the people of Israel into a nation and giving them a land flowing with milk and honey, a place that they could call home.
PCP Blessings:But really what God was doing was establishing his people who would be called holy.
PCP Blessings:We talked about this last week.
PCP Blessings:God was making Israel into his treasured possession.
PCP Blessings:Segula is the Hebrew word for treasured possession.
PCP Blessings:And it literally means mine.
PCP Blessings:God was calling a people to be mine.
PCP Blessings:And so Deuteronomy says, for you are a people holy to the Lord.
PCP Blessings:The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession out of all the peoples of the earth.
PCP Blessings:Israel was called to be set apart.
PCP Blessings:They were called to be holy.
PCP Blessings:If they remained faithful to them, to God, God would bless them.
PCP Blessings:And if not, God would what?
PCP Blessings:Curse them.
PCP Blessings:If you read scripture, especially the Old Testament, every time Israel entered a season of curses, it would begin with God stepping back.
PCP Blessings:I got your attention right this morning.
PCP Blessings:I got your attention this morning.
PCP Blessings:I need you to get this word this morning.
PCP Blessings:Because God is desiring people of the presence.
PCP Blessings:God is desiring a church that truly desires him.
PCP Blessings:And in Israel, they got this, they got it wrong so many times.
PCP Blessings:Because they were missing the whole point of who they were called to be.
PCP Blessings:In their minds, they were the people of God, but they didn't act like the people of God.
PCP Blessings:In their minds, they were the people of God, but they wanted to do things their way, not God's way.
PCP Blessings:And so anytime God would bless, or anytime God would curse them, it would begin with God stepping back.
PCP Blessings:And it wasn't just God taking things away from them.
PCP Blessings:He was removing himself from them.
PCP Blessings:Because if you are going to do something out of the will of God, God is not going to go ahead of you.
PCP Blessings:He might pull you out when you realize that you made a mistake and you repented.
PCP Blessings:And then out of those mistakes, he can make something beautiful because that is just the power and the glory of God.
PCP Blessings:That's what he does.
PCP Blessings:But God will not walk ahead of you to a place that is outside of his will.
PCP Blessings:The Hebrew word for presence is panim.
PCP Blessings:Somebody say panim.
PCP Blessings:And panim has a range of meanings in the English, but they all seem to refer to the front.
PCP Blessings:So some English words that are used for panim are front, before, face, and head.
PCP Blessings:So to have the presence of God with you isn't just to have him around.
PCP Blessings:It's to have him with you and before you.
PCP Blessings:It's having him take the lead.
PCP Blessings:See when the Israelites brought the Ark of the Covenant into the battle with the Philistines, they reasoned.
PCP Blessings:Well, if we have the Ark with us, surely we're going to win.
PCP Blessings:Because the Ark represented the presence of God.
PCP Blessings:So let's just bring the Ark of the Covenant into the battlefield and we're going to win.
PCP Blessings:And did they win?
PCP Blessings:No.
PCP Blessings:Why?
PCP Blessings:Why didn't God not allow them to be with you?
PCP Blessings:Why didn't God allow them to be victorious?
PCP Blessings:Because even though the Ark was present, God was not with Israel.
PCP Blessings:God was present, but his favor was not with Israel.
PCP Blessings:And so you're walking into a place where God already said, don't go there.
PCP Blessings:I don't know who I'm speaking to this morning.
PCP Blessings:God said, don't do it.
PCP Blessings:Don't say that.
PCP Blessings:Don't enter that relationship.
PCP Blessings:Don't go there.
PCP Blessings:And you're like, well, if I just put on my worship music, God will be with me.
PCP Blessings:I'll just blast it really loud.
PCP Blessings:Well, I'll just say a prayer.
PCP Blessings:And maybe he'll be with me.
PCP Blessings:You have to understand that God may be around to clean up your mess.
PCP Blessings:But if God's favor is absent from where you are going, with who you are dating, with what you are doing,
PCP Blessings:He will not go before you.
PCP Blessings:He will not stand in front of you to protect you when the hand of the enemy comes your way.
PCP Blessings:Because when God is for you, He stands in front of you, and no weapon formed against me shall prosper.
PCP Blessings:Because God is right there in front of me.
PCP Blessings:And even though I'm in the valley, even though I'm on the mountaintop, it doesn't matter because God is with me.
PCP Blessings:But when I'm going to a place where God didn't even sanction, He's going to step aside.
PCP Blessings:And how foolish of us, how foolish of us to think that we're always going to have
PCP Blessings:the favor and the protection of God when we are deliberately going into direction where He said not to go.
PCP Blessings:And be careful because if the presence of God isn't with you, the blessings of God will definitely not follow you.
PCP Blessings:We don't talk about hell a lot.
PCP Blessings:But what is hell?
PCP Blessings:It's a total absence of God.
PCP Blessings:Nothing of God's presence will exist in hell.
PCP Blessings:It is a total removal of His presence.
PCP Blessings:And with it comes unending pain and anguish and agony and suffering, and there's no hope.
PCP Blessings:So if the curses of God begin with God being absent, then the blessings of God begin with God being present.
PCP Blessings:You want the Lord's favor in your marriage.
PCP Blessings:It begins with Him being present in your marriage.
PCP Blessings:Like in your marriage.
PCP Blessings:He has to go before you. He has to go ahead of you. He has to lead you.
PCP Blessings:You want the Lord to bless your business. God needs to be in your business.
PCP Blessings:You want God over your ministry, over your church, over your project, over your family.
PCP Blessings:God needs to be present in every aspect of life in which you wish to have the blessings of God.
PCP Blessings:At the end of my life, in Melissa's life, everything that we have, and I hope to have something, is going to go to our children.
PCP Blessings:Everything. Every asset, every piece of real estate. Everything is going to go to our daughters because they are our children.
PCP Blessings:It doesn't mean that I don't love your children. They're my children. I'm going to give them my blessing.
PCP Blessings:And so God wants to bless His children.
PCP Blessings:That's what He wants to do. That's why He called Israel.
PCP Blessings:He wants to bless His children, but when we begin to exclude God's presence, and we turn our backs to God in certain aspects of our lives,
PCP Blessings:well then God stops seeing us as His.
PCP Blessings:And God will not take ownership of something that has not been consecrated for Him.
PCP Blessings:I want you to notice something interesting in the text. God tells Moses,
PCP Blessings:depart and go up from here you and the people whom you have brought from the light of Egypt.
PCP Blessings:I'm going to read that again.
PCP Blessings:Depart, go up from here you and the people whom you have brought out of the land of Egypt.
PCP Blessings:Do you notice something different there?
PCP Blessings:Up until now, it has been my people whom I have brought out of Egypt.
PCP Blessings:God said to Moses, go and tell Pharaoh to let my people go.
PCP Blessings:I am with my people. I will bless my people. They are my people. They are my treasured possession.
PCP Blessings:I brought them out of Egypt. I parted the Red Sea. I led them through the wilderness.
PCP Blessings:I am theirs and they are mine.
PCP Blessings:But now it's taking your people who you brought out of Egypt.
PCP Blessings:So, Israel had just broken covenant with God. That's the context of this.
PCP Blessings:All this takes place after the Golden Calf incident where God, where the people were making Aaron
PCP Blessings:carve this golden image so that they could worship it.
PCP Blessings:And before that, they had made a covenant. They had made a promise with God to be holy and to be His.
PCP Blessings:And they broke it.
PCP Blessings:And so because they broke it, God was no longer going to claim them as His people because they turned away from Him.
PCP Blessings:But you know, God is still faithful in His promises. He wasn't going to forget about the faithful.
PCP Blessings:God wasn't about to forget about the promise that He made to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob.
PCP Blessings:And so He says, take your people, Moses, and go into the land that I swore I would give them.
PCP Blessings:It will still flow with milk and honey.
PCP Blessings:All the enemies are still going to be driven out because God is faithful that way.
PCP Blessings:But the presence will no longer be there with you.
PCP Blessings:God can no longer walk with these people because they rejected Him.
PCP Blessings:Now, I know most of us haven't rejected God. I'm speaking to a room full of Christians, right?
PCP Blessings:Most of us are walking with God.
PCP Blessings:So what's the point of this sermon?
PCP Blessings:I was talking to somebody this week and they said,
PCP Blessings:Pastor, I've asked God into my life, but there's so many areas where I'm still not seeing the hand of God.
PCP Blessings:Like there's so many areas that are still flawed.
PCP Blessings:And I asked this person, I said, is God in every room?
PCP Blessings:What do you mean?
PCP Blessings:I said, if you think about your life like a house,
PCP Blessings:can you say that God inhabits every room in the house?
PCP Blessings:That that's what spiritual maturity looks like.
PCP Blessings:It's saying, Holy Spirit, come into my life and then giving Him access to every single room.
PCP Blessings:When you invite a person into your house, do you expect them to go in every room?
PCP Blessings:When you invite somebody into your house, you're friendly to them, you serve them, maybe you sit down for a meal,
PCP Blessings:you invite them to sit at your table and you clean all the visible areas of the house.
PCP Blessings:You clean where they're expected to go, the living room, the family room, the dining room, the game room.
PCP Blessings:And all the junk that was in the game room gets thrown in the bedroom or the closet
PCP Blessings:because you don't expect them to go there.
PCP Blessings:And so when we invite God into our lives, we have those rooms where we're like, well, God is not going to go there.
PCP Blessings:I'm not going to give Him access to that.
PCP Blessings:I'll give Him access to my heart, but not my mind.
PCP Blessings:I'll give Him access to my mind, but not my words.
PCP Blessings:I'm going to give Him access to my time, but not the things that I listen to, not the things that I watch.
PCP Blessings:I'm going to give Him access to some things.
PCP Blessings:And so I asked this person, is God in every room or just in some?
PCP Blessings:Because I think that that is the problem that we have as Christians.
PCP Blessings:We don't give God access to everything.
PCP Blessings:And that's the question I want to ask this morning.
PCP Blessings:It's not have you rejected God in your life.
PCP Blessings:The question is, have you allowed Him everywhere?
PCP Blessings:Because if the closet is a mess, it's still going to remain a mess as long as God is absent.
PCP Blessings:Some of you have addictions that you just haven't given to God yet, and that's why you still have them.
PCP Blessings:And you're saved, and you're here, and you love God, but you haven't broken certain chains because you haven't given Him the chains to break.
PCP Blessings:God is a chain breaker, but He has to have the access to it.
PCP Blessings:And so some people have come to the altar, and they prayed for everyone and everything except that one thing that they're not willing to let go of.
PCP Blessings:You haven't given God access to everything.
PCP Blessings:God, my pride, remove it.
PCP Blessings:God, my anxiety, my relationship that I know you don't approve of.
PCP Blessings:It's like we have all these elephants in the room, and we pray, but we avoid the thing that we should be praying for.
PCP Blessings:Is God in every room of your life?
PCP Blessings:That's the question that I have for you, church.
PCP Blessings:I want you to know something that is probably missed when we read about the golden calf.
PCP Blessings:That's in 32, chapter 32 of Exodus.
PCP Blessings:In ancient Israel, in the ancient Near East, it was very common.
PCP Blessings:Let me just get your attention. I'm going to bore you with a little bit of historic details.
PCP Blessings:In the ancient Near East, it was really common for God to be reduced to carved images.
PCP Blessings:Very common.
PCP Blessings:It wasn't that the pagans believed that the images were gods, but they believed that the image represented their gods.
PCP Blessings:Israel was fully immersed in this culture.
PCP Blessings:When they carved the image of the golden calf in their minds, they weren't rejecting Yahweh.
PCP Blessings:They were embracing Yahweh in the form of a statue.
PCP Blessings:Why do they even feel the need to do this?
PCP Blessings:Because Moses, the prophet, the man of God, who represented Yahweh to Israel and Israel to Yahweh, he wasn't around.
PCP Blessings:He was up on the mountain somewhere.
PCP Blessings:Goofing off. What is he even doing up there? How long is he going to be up there?
PCP Blessings:Eventually, they think, well, the only way that we're going to have access to God, because it used to be through Moses, but we don't know what happened to him.
PCP Blessings:Now, it's going to have to be in the form of a carved image.
PCP Blessings:Aaron, give us a carved image that we can touch and we can see and we can worship.
PCP Blessings:And so what the Israelites did was they failed to trust.
PCP Blessings:We're going to reduce Yahweh to an image that we can see and that we can speak to and that we can touch and we have access to directly.
PCP Blessings:They made themselves God over Yahweh is what they did.
PCP Blessings:And so anytime you think that you can rationalize or justify what you're doing by taking God with you, God is not a thing to be taken.
PCP Blessings:Oh, man, we do it so many times.
PCP Blessings:When it's something that we want, when it's something that we want, what do we say?
PCP Blessings:I think the Lord is calling me to this.
PCP Blessings:You want to plan a church just because you're mad at your pastor?
PCP Blessings:I think the Lord is calling me to this.
PCP Blessings:You entered a relationship that you probably should have entered.
PCP Blessings:I think the Lord is wanting me to take a break.
PCP Blessings:You plan to do something that is against all the Godly counsel.
PCP Blessings:And you're like, nah, I already prayed about it.
PCP Blessings:That's what we do.
PCP Blessings:I'm going to take God with me.
PCP Blessings:I'm going to reduce him into something that I want.
PCP Blessings:Church, that's not the presence of God.
PCP Blessings:God's presence, church, is the blessing.
PCP Blessings:You want to be blessed by God.
PCP Blessings:God has to bless it first.
PCP Blessings:You want the job to produce the blessing God has to bless you with the job.
PCP Blessings:So recently I started asking myself, man, where have I rejected God?
PCP Blessings:Because, man, honest to God, I never, ever, ever want to be outside of the will of God.
PCP Blessings:I know that I'm going to stumble.
PCP Blessings:I know that I'm going to make mistakes.
PCP Blessings:But I never want to embrace an aspect of my life where God is just not there.
PCP Blessings:Every decision, every business decision, every ministry decision, every family decision.
PCP Blessings:God, are you in this or is this me?
PCP Blessings:Sometimes I take a long time to make decisions.
PCP Blessings:Big decisions because I want to hear from God, Lord, are you in this?
PCP Blessings:I don't want to make, it's so easy to make a move out of emotion and say, God, God had me do it.
PCP Blessings:Church, if God isn't in it, remove it.
PCP Blessings:That's my challenge to you.
PCP Blessings:If God isn't in that relationship, if he's not in that project, if he's not in that financial burden that you're about to take on, remove it.
PCP Blessings:Because when we begin to, when we take too long, we begin to be too comfortable without God's presence.
PCP Blessings:That's when we begin to contaminate every other area of life.
PCP Blessings:See, Moses, Moses was a man of God.
PCP Blessings:The presence of God was with Moses.
PCP Blessings:Very much so.
PCP Blessings:And so for Moses to hear the words, my presence will not go.
PCP Blessings:That ought to be the scariest, most heartbreaking thing that you've ever heard in his life.
PCP Blessings:Imagine saying, imagine God saying to you, my presence will not go with your children at school.
PCP Blessings:Imagine God saying, I will not be with you in that operating room.
PCP Blessings:I will not be with you in your financial decisions because you haven't even considered me in them anyways.
PCP Blessings:How heartbreaking would it be to hear those words from God?
PCP Blessings:But we don't realize that if we've rejected God in any of these areas, he's already not there.
PCP Blessings:When we reject Godly counsel, when we reject, when we don't let God work through our pride, when we put idols in front of God in the form of ambitions and our own desires, we are rejecting God.
PCP Blessings:And we don't even realize it and we want to be called blessed.
PCP Blessings:God wants to bless you.
PCP Blessings:But he defines the blessing.
PCP Blessings:He defines the blessing.
PCP Blessings:I'm going to have the worship team come up.
PCP Blessings:I'm going to get ready to close.
PCP Blessings:As I was wrapping up the sermon, God said, tell the people, I want my people to be people of the presence.
PCP Blessings:I want my people to desire my presence.
PCP Blessings:Not just my approval, my leadership, my favor, my blessings.
PCP Blessings:When people desire the presence of God, if you haven't paid attention yet, I need you to pay attention now.
PCP Blessings:When people desire the presence of God, that's when God listens.
PCP Blessings:That's when God listens.
PCP Blessings:Because when you are for God, God knows that he can be for you.
PCP Blessings:Where there is a man, where there is a woman of God who knows God intimately, God's going to listen.
PCP Blessings:And God heard the prayers of my grandma.
PCP Blessings:God heard the prayers of my grandparents, of my parents.
PCP Blessings:Because they were people of the presence.
PCP Blessings:And I love this dialogue between Moses and God.
PCP Blessings:God had just told Moses to go without his presence.
PCP Blessings:And Moses being a man who is favored by God, he makes an appeal to God.
PCP Blessings:See, this is what the favor allows you to do.
PCP Blessings:It allows you to appeal.
PCP Blessings:If I have no favor with God, who am I to even ask for God to reconsider?
PCP Blessings:Who am I even to go before him and ask for anything but as a child of God, holy and anointed and appointed in favor?
PCP Blessings:I've got a little bit of pull with my Father in heaven.
PCP Blessings:My prayer means something.
PCP Blessings:James says that the prayers of the righteous are powerful and effective.
PCP Blessings:The prayers of the righteous are going to be heard.
PCP Blessings:They mean something.
PCP Blessings:When you're a righteous person, your prayers have credibility.
PCP Blessings:And God listens.
PCP Blessings:And so Moses said to the Lord, see you say to me bring up this people, but you have not let me know whom you will send with me.
PCP Blessings:Yet you have said I know you by name and you have also found favor in my sight.
PCP Blessings:Now therefore, if I have favor in your sight, please show me now your ways that I may know you in order to find favor in your sight.
PCP Blessings:So he's saying, God, if I truly have this favor in your sight, tell me what my next move is going to be.
PCP Blessings:Tell me what to do.
PCP Blessings:If I am the man of God, if you know me intimately, if you have called me by name,
PCP Blessings:if you have anointed me and appointed me and I am yours and we have this relationship where I speak to you face to face,
PCP Blessings:if I have that type of favor with you.
PCP Blessings:He says also consider this nation.
PCP Blessings:I wish I had it up here.
PCP Blessings:I think it's verse 13.
PCP Blessings:He says, but also consider too that this nation is your people.
PCP Blessings:They're not just my people, God. These are your people.
PCP Blessings:These are your people.
PCP Blessings:We need people of God to say, Lord, consider my children as your children.
PCP Blessings:Consider this ministry your ministry.
PCP Blessings:Consider this business. This business is your business.
PCP Blessings:If you're not in it, I don't want any part of it.
PCP Blessings:Moses said, if your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here.
PCP Blessings:I will not lead a people who you are not leading.
PCP Blessings:I don't care about the milk. I don't care about the honey. I don't care about the riches.
PCP Blessings:I don't care about the money flowing or the abundance of money in the bank.
PCP Blessings:I don't care about having favor with the people without your presence.
PCP Blessings:I've got nothing without your presence.
PCP Blessings:There is no blessing without your favor. What am I even doing here?
PCP Blessings:God listens to the people of the presence when they pray.
PCP Blessings:Because God plays it. Listen, God says, I will give you the desires of your heart.
PCP Blessings:He's talking to a righteous man. He ain't talking to someone off the street who doesn't ever consider God's blessings or favor in their life.
PCP Blessings:God is talking to somebody who has a desire after God's own heart.
PCP Blessings:If God knows you intimately, that's when God begins to speak and put desires, his desires into your heart.
PCP Blessings:Because he knows that he can trust you with his desires that he's placing in your heart.
PCP Blessings:But you have to be people of the presence. You have to be people who know God intimately.
PCP Blessings:And see, it was because of the righteousness of Abraham that I get an overflow of the blessings.
PCP Blessings:It was because of the appeal that the man of God, Moses, made to God that the Israelites eventually enter the Promised Land.
PCP Blessings:And God remained faithful to them. He remained their God.
PCP Blessings:Because of the holy perfection of Jesus, we have the blessing of salvation.
PCP Blessings:Because I have parents who are people of the presence.
PCP Blessings:I continue to receive the blessings and the favor of God when I walk in his ways.
PCP Blessings:You want to bless life church. It only happens in the presence of God.
PCP Blessings:I hope that today you walk out with that.
PCP Blessings:Because God wants to bless you. He wants to bless your kids.
PCP Blessings:He wants to bless your family for generations to come.
PCP Blessings:But it only comes with this presence. His presence is the blessing.
PCP Blessings:I'm going to close with this. I'm going to ask you to stand.
PCP Blessings:God gave a word to Moses to speak to Aaron. Aaron was a high priest.
PCP Blessings:And so Aaron and his descendants would be known as what? Levites.
PCP Blessings:The Levites were those who, they were called to the priesthood.
PCP Blessings:Levites were priests and priests were to be consecrated.
PCP Blessings:They were to act on behalf of the Israelites.
PCP Blessings:They would make sacrifices on behalf of God's people.
PCP Blessings:They would work in the temple.
PCP Blessings:They were to have no inheritance of land like those given to the rest of the tribes of Israel.
PCP Blessings:Because they were to remain in the temple all the days of their life.
PCP Blessings:That was their duty. Deuteronomy says the Lord was their inheritance.
PCP Blessings:They were called to be the people of the presence.
PCP Blessings:And so Moses gives his word to Aaron. It's found in number 622.
PCP Blessings:He says the Lord said to Moses saying, speak to Aaron and his son saying,
PCP Blessings:thus you shall bless the people of Israel and you shall say to them,
PCP Blessings:the Lord bless you and keep you.
PCP Blessings:The Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you.
PCP Blessings:The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.
PCP Blessings:So shall they put my name upon the people of Israel and I will bless them.
PCP Blessings:The presence of God is the blessing.
PCP Blessings:Don't get it twisted church.
PCP Blessings:The presence of God is the blessing.
PCP Blessings:Without the presence there is no blessing.
PCP Blessings:Without the presence there is no favor.
PCP Blessings:Without the presence of God there is no life.
PCP Blessings:And this morning I just, I can't make you do anything.
PCP Blessings:But I'm going to ask that together we ask the presence of God to inhabit every single room in our lives.
PCP Blessings:Every single space my God.
PCP Blessings:So that it's not just me that gets the blessing my God but it flows over to my children
PCP Blessings:and their children, my God.
PCP Blessings:And my extended family, my God, through the blessings that you have poured into my life, Father God,
PCP Blessings:because of your presence.
PCP Blessings:God make us men and women of the presence this morning as we seek you.
PCP Blessings:I pray that we would find you, my God.
PCP Blessings:When we call upon your name, I pray that you would hear us, Father God.
PCP Blessings:I pray, Father God, that the prayers of the righteous people in this place would move your heart, Father.
PCP Blessings:Oh Jesus' name, I'm going to ask that you come to me.
PCP Blessings:Thanks for listening. If you'd like some more information on PNEUMA Church,
PCP Blessings:visit us on our website at mypneumachurch.org.
PCP Blessings:If you enjoyed the podcast, you can subscribe or share it with your friends on social media and tag us at mynumachurch.
PCP Blessings:Thanks again and God bless.