Guest Speaker Mark Wilson | Pursuing the Presence of God with Passion

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Transcript

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It's a privilege to be a guest. Kind of weird, but it's a privilege. Thank you so much, Pastor Christian. You know what we like to do around here? We like to start our receiving of the word with a declaration of who God is and who we are because of that. So we're going to do that, but I want to do one thing. I want to encourage you not to just say it, but to engage your heart, to say it with faith, to say it with your spirit, not just as a rote, kind of, okay, this is what we do. I want to encourage you, engage your faith as we do our declarations. So stand up with me and let's do our declarations together. Here we go. God is who he says he is. God will do what he says he will do. I am who God says I am. I can do all things through Christ. God's word is truth. God's word is alive and active in me. And now, because of what Christ has done, I am highly favored, greatly blessed, and deeply loved. Father God, we believe it. We say that with all that we have. We know who you are. We know who we are because of you. And we trust that you are going to take care of us because we're yours. And we thank you for it in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. You may be seated. Yeah. Yeah, being introduced as a guest is a little weird. I mean, I've I've been around. I mean, I've I've known Pastor Richie and Pastor Pam since the 1900s. I mean, we've we've we've known each other. As a matter of fact, it's a little funny for me because when R3 and when Christian are telling stories of the mischief they've gotten into as kids, I've heard those stories just from a different perspective from my kids' perspective. Because, you know, I I had the privilege to be in the very first service of Amarillo Fellowship up at uh Pastor Richie and Pam's house. There were 12 of us there, and five of them were my kids and the brown kids. But it was great, and you guys get to reap the harvest of the seeds sown back in that day, and it's a wonderful and beautiful thing to be thankful for and to celebrate. It's really, really great. I I'm I'm so excited to be a part. You know, I I've as I said, I've known I've known the Brown family for a long time. I've I've played guitar for Pastor Pam. That's where I first met him. I play guitar for Pastor Pam during a prayer service at another church, the church we were previously at before Emerald Fellowship was was launched. And and uh man, I I gotta tell you, I I I love I love to play. I love to play guitars. I don't I don't know if you've noticed, but I I have a bunch of different guitars that I tend to play. You see, I used to you know trade in guitars, you know, I'd I'd trade this one to get that one, I'd trade this one to get that one, but about five or six years ago, I somehow switched from from trading and upgrading to just kind of collecting. And now I have a lot of guitars, and and I like it a lot. It's great. You know, it's really, really cool. I've got them, they hang up on my walls in my office, it's great. When I'm on video conferences, people are like, hey, you play the guitar. No, I just like them. Matter of fact, I got this one guitar, it's really, really cool. It's my favorite guitar. It's a Collings OM2H deep body. It's really, really cool. It's got a Sitka spruce top that's been torrified, which means that it's been baked in an oxygen-free oven to make sure all the moisture's out of it. And the bracing is Adirondack spruce, so that gives it a little bit more of a lively top, and it's four and a half inches deep as opposed to four and three-eighths inches deep, because then you're bored already, aren't you?

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Come on.

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Because you don't have the same level of passion for guitars as I do. That's that's that's normal. But I tell you what, we can develop a passion by feeding a passion. One of our principles at Amarilla Fellowship Church is that we want to be a spirit-led, passionate group of worshipers. We want to pursue the presence of God with passion. And believe it or not, that's on the website. You can look it up. That's who we want to be. Why? Because there's in God's presence, there is fullness of joy. God's presence. Let me just tell you, there are questions that you have that you don't even know you have that get answered when you get into the presence of God. When you spend some time in worship and prayer and meditation and in the community of faith, there's stuff, stuff just happens when you worship with passion, when you pursue the presence of God. You know, David was a biblical example of someone who pursued the presence of God. He loved to be in the presence of God. From when he was a small boy out on the backside of the desert, he loved to be in the presence of God. He would worship. You know, I think that he had a he I think that he invented guitars. I'm pretty sure that's in the Bible somewhere. Because, you know, well, I don't know if it is or not, but I'm going to think that way anyway. But he he loved to just be alone, just sing to the sheep. You know, he would he would worship and he would celebrate. And because he had such a heart for God, before he was even in a place to become king, before he was even noticed by anyone, God said, That's what I want. God said, That's that's a king right there. And he was anointed to be the king of Israel, even before he was in any kind of he wasn't any in any kind of training. Hey, here's the here's the study, here's the curriculum to become a king. No. God said, that heart, that's what I want. And so we're gonna we're gonna take a look at a story in the life of David. And this happened right as he was becoming king. You see, when David was anointed king, Saul was still the king. And Saul would go out and he would do battle, and he was doing battle with the Philistines, and and one of their traditions was that they would take the Ark of the Covenant, which represented the manifest presence of God. They would take that with them into battle because the presence of God that goes with you always led the way and led to victory. But the problem is that had that Saul had lost his anointing, and he had the form of the presence of God, but not the power of the presence of God, and he lost and was killed in the battle. And the Ark of the Covenant was captured by the Philistines. And they captured it, and you know, they wanted to, they wanted to make a big show of it, you know, so they put it in their temple, and so their idol, Dagon, could look down at the Ark of the Covenant, and they came in the next morning and the idol was knocked over. And then so, okay, well, we'll put it back up. And they came back in the next morning and they knocked it over. The idol's knocked over, and the head was was knocked off of the idol. And so finally, the Philistines said, dude, get rid of this thing. We don't we don't want any part of this anymore. And that's where we pick up the story in 2 Samuel chapter 6. David, who's just been anointed king, is going to get the Ark of the Covenant. This is 2 Samuel, Samuel chapter 6, verse 1. We're gonna read a lot of this story today, sister, so hang with me. Again, David gathered all the choice men of Israel, 30,000, and David arose and went with all the people who were with him from Baal Judah to bring up from there the ark of God, whose name is called by the name the Lord of hosts, who dwells between the cherubim. So they set the ark of God on a new cart and brought it out of the house of Abinadab, which is on the hill, and Uzzah and Ahiah, the sons of Abinadab, drove the drove the cart. Excuse me. And they brought it out of the house of Abinadab, which was on the hill, accompanying the Ark of God, and Ahiah went before the Ark of God. Then David and all the house of Israel played music before the Lord, all kinds of instruments of firwood and harps and string stringed instruments. Stringed the guitars. That's that's what the Hebrew says. That's the Hebrew, I think. And tambourines, no tambourines allowed, no unauthorized tambourine playing. Right, Christian? Right? Okay, yeah. Uh and tambourines and cisterns and cymbals. And when they came to Nakon's threshing floor, Uzzah put out his hand to the ark of God and took hold of it, for the oxen stumbled, and then the anger of the Lord was aroused against Uzzah, and God struck him there for his error, and he died there by the ark of God. And David became angry because of the Lord's outbreak against Uzzah, and he called the name of that place Perez Uzzah to this day. David was afraid of the Lord that day, and he said, How can the ark of the Lord come to me? So David would not move the ark of the Lord with him into the city of David. But David took it aside into the house of Obed-Edom the Gittite. And the ark of the Lord remained in the house of Obed Edom the Gittite three months, and the Lord blessed Obed-Edom and his household. What? He David David was doing a good thing. He wanted to bring the ark home. He went to carts or us and got himself a brand new cart. He stuck it on there. Huh? What? You have to be careful about how you treat holy things. Because if you treat something holy as if it's ordinary, sometimes stuff happens. That was that was the problem, you see. David, his heart was in the right place. He wanted to do this thing, and he was following kind of a pattern. They were worshiping. The band was there. They were doing all the thing, and they were they were just they were just going along. But what he did unintentionally is he created kind of a method to get the presence of God rather than actually pursuing the presence of God. He kind of made it normal, made it ordinary. Have you ever treated something that was special as if it's ordinary? I mean, I know none of you have, but you know people who have. We have to be careful. We have to understand that holy things have value. That holy things deserve reverence, that they need to be handled as if they're holy. And believe it or not, you're a holy thing. And I feel like I need to say this during this service for some reason. You're a holy thing, so stop treating yourself as ordinary. Someone here needs to hear that. You are a holy thing. You are fearfully and wonderfully made. God created you. He knit you together in your mother's womb. And you are a holy thing. Stop seeing yourself as less than who you are created to be. Let's continue with the story. Now can't now I can't see because I'm crying. Sorry. They're getting on me at the other service because I keep hitting the mic, and now I can't see because I'm crying and stuff. Okay. Now it's told to King David, saying, The Lord has blessed the house of Obed Edom and all that belongs to him because of the ark of God. So David went and brought up the ark of God from the house of Obed Edom to the city of David with gladness. So it was placed, or so it was, when those bearing the ark of the Lord had gone six paces, that he sacrificed oxen and fatted sheep. And then David danced before the Lord with all his might. And he was wearing a linen ephod. So David and all the house of Israel brought up the ark of the Lord with shouting and with the sound of trumpets. David heard about what was happening in Obed-Edom's house. Obed-Edom's house was prospering. It was being blessed. Good stuff was happening because good stuff happens when you get into the presence of God, and God's presence rested on Obed Edom's house, and David said, I got to have that. But remember what the beginning said? David was confused. He said, How am I supposed to get the presence of God here? Well, he studied. And he read and he looked back and then he remembered, hey, there's those little rings on the side of the Ark of the Covenant that you're supposed to put poles through. Did you hear what we just read? And when those who bear the Ark of the Covenant, there weren't no cart going on anymore. Because David finally understood that the presence of God is something that's holy, and it's not designed to be carried by a method, it's designed to be carried by a person. It's designed to be carried by us. We are the bearers of the presence of God. In every situation, in every circumstance that we find ourselves in, we are the ones who bear the presence of God. Now, it says in this passage that when they took six steps, they made a sacrifice. When they took six steps, now scholars kind of differ. Some say it was when they took their first six steps, they made a sacrifice to kind of anoint the journey. Others say it was every six steps, meaning they were sacrificing the whole way along. The estimates of the economic economics of that sacrifice, if it was every six steps, the economics say that that was a sacrifice worth three million dollars to get it from Obed Edom's house to uh the city of David. That is a sacrifice. Something happens to your worship when it costs you something. Something happens to the way that you pursue God when it costs you something. This cost David something. He made a sacrifice. He said, I am not going to let this just be normal. I'm not gonna let this just be ordinary. I'm not gonna let this just be an everyday thing. I'm gonna make this cost something. And you know what happened in David when he did? He got really, really happy. And David danced before the Lord with all his might. He danced before the Lord with everything that he had. He said, This cost me so much, I'm gonna give everything. I'm gonna lay it all out. I'm gonna give all I've got. I'm gonna pour out everything. I've given it, I've given of my means, I've given of my resources. Now I'm gonna give of my spirit, I'm gonna dance with all I have. And he led the way in worship because of his passion. And he was wearing a linen ephod. Basically his underwear. Now, now, now. Don't think tidy whities. Think like a like a dressing gown, okay? That's what a linen ephod is. But it's not it's not normal. I mean, he was just a brand new king. He was supposed to wear king stuff, he was supposed to wear all the accoutrements of being a king, but that didn't. That didn't matter to him. Because he was dancing before the Lord with everything that was in him. So he didn't want anything to weigh him down, he didn't want anything to drag him down. He was celebrating that the presence of God is in the house right now. He was celebrating and he didn't need the extra weight of the expectations of the people around him. Verse 16. Now, as the ark of the Lord came into the city of David, Michael, Saul's daughter, who was also David's wife. He was David's wife. They got married earlier in the story. Saul's daughter looked through a window and saw David leaping and whirling before the Lord. How long has it been since you've seen people leaping and whirling before the Lord? You gotta have some leaping classes going on, equipping the saints to do some whirling. Just making a suggestion. Small group on whirling. Next term. Sorry, that my this that was a squirrel. I don't tell Pastor Ritchie. Um I already know he watched the last one, so I'm afraid to do that. I'm just kidding. Okay. Leaping and whirling before the Lord, and she despised him in her heart. So they brought the ark of the Lord and set it in its place in the midst of the tabernacle that David had erected for it. Then David offered burnt offerings and peace offerings before the Lord. And when David had finished offering burnt offerings and peace offerings, he blessed the people in the name of the Lord of hosts. Then he distributed among all the people, among the whole multitude of Israel, both women and men, to everyone a loaf of bread, a piece of meat, a cake of raisins, so that all the people departed, everyone to his house. David didn't look very kingly. He he wasn't paying much attention to the fashion of the day. He wasn't being very proper. When we talk about pursuing the presence of God, the proper will keep you looking here. The proper will keep your eyes down, but passion will keep you keep your eyes up. But David wasn't looking around him. He was looking up. He was worshiping with all his might. You see, David was worshiping. He didn't just, I mean, it this was an extravagant day, and extravagance begets extravagance. Extravagant worship leads you into the extravagant presence of God where stuff just happens. We talked about it earlier. There are things that happen when we get into the presence of God that we didn't even know we needed to happen. There are things that happen in our hearts, in our lives. There are changes that God makes in the presence of God that we didn't even know we needed. Because God taps something when he draws close, when we draw near to him. The passion aims us in the right direction. Verse 20, then David returned to bless his household. He just blessed everybody. He said, Man, this is a good day. Man, all y'all enjoy this. This is a good day. And he wanted to share some of that with his household. And David returned to bless his household, and Michael, the daughter of Saul, came out to meet him and said, How glorious was the king of Israel today. Uncovering himself today in the eyes of maids and of his servants, as one of those base fellows shamelessly uncovers himself. Can you just kind of see that? You know, whoa, how glorious you become, how kingly you looked. It's important that you don't judge someone else's worship. Because you don't know how much that worship costs them. You don't know the sacrifices that were made that led to that offering of worship. And what can happen sometimes. Now I know that none of y'all have ever looked at somebody and said, that's weird in worship. But there's other people that have from somewhere else. It's really, really easy to look and to judge. It's easy. It's tempting. But I want to encourage you. You don't know how much it costs for that offering of worship to be given. Now, that being said, goofy is goofy. And blaming the Holy Spirit for it doesn't make it worship. Okay? Just being real. Now, here's another thing. Is it my job to call out someone's goofy? No. Holy Spirit's an awful good teacher. And he'll he'll talk to it. I'm just saying, okay? There's a difference between traveling worship and blaming something goofy on Holy Spirit. Let's have our heart in the right place. Let's make our offerings of worship like we should. Verse 21. So David said to Michael, it was before the Lord who chose me instead of your father and all of his house to appoint me ruler over the people of the Lord or over Israel. Therefore, I will play music before the Lord, and I will be even more undignified than this. I will be humble in my own sight, but as for the maids of whom you have spoken, by them I will be held in honor. Therefore, Michael, the daughter of Saul, had no children to the day of her death. David basically said, Hey, you think that was weird? Sister, I'm gonna take you all the way to Austin. I will become even more undignified than this. You think that was weird, you don't know what it cost me, and frankly, I don't care what you think. I'm gonna dance, I'm gonna play music, I'm gonna celebrate. Because here's the thing: people want you to bow your knee to them because they want you to do what's proper, but you aren't worshiping them, you're worshiping him. I was a worship pastor for a long time. And there'd be people sometimes that would come up and say, Man, Mark, I just really don't like that song. I really, I just and and you know, I never said this, but I wanted to. I wanted to say, well, when we start worshiping you, we'll take it out of the rotation. It's not about them. It's about him. It's about pursuing him with all you've got. David said, You ain't seen nothing yet. But here's what can happen if you allow that judgment that Michael had to take root. The Bible says that she didn't have any children until the day of her death. Now, whether that was because she was made barren by the Holy Spirit or whether David was just done with her, I don't know, but it doesn't matter. The fact of the matter is she bore no fruit. We have to be careful about despising other people's worship because it will steal from us the fruit that we're supposed to bear. The fruit that we're supposed to bear to feed ourselves and the people around us. We have to be careful about that. Because God made us to bear fruit for the people around us. You know, I uh I kind of grew up in I grew up in a very traditional denomination that was, you know, pretty proper, and and I always had a little bit more of this in my worship than some people were comfortable with. There were a lot of times I I was in college and I was in a singing group. I went to one of the denominations' colleges and was in part of a singing group that would travel to different churches to recruit different students, and and one of the things that I would often hear was, my, you're energetic. It took me a long time to pull the weight of that off because I had to understand in my heart that I'm not responsible to them, I'm responsible to him. I don't have to carry the weight of your expectations, I just have to pursue him with passion and then let him be God. You see, that's what happens when you forget to look around you and you start to look up. Passion focuses us in the right direction. Pastor Richie, now it's weird because it's July, but Pastor Richie always at the beginning of the year talks about reading through the Bible in a year, you know. You know, hey, it's a great opportunity for you to jump in there and get through the Bible in a year. How many of you have ever done through the Bible in a year in a year? I've done it twice and actually finished once. I'm just being honest with you. I I'm not a I'm not that kind of my brain didn't work that way. But there are there are parts of through the Bible in a year that are hard. I mean, Leviticus and the begats, and and this guy begat that guy, and this guy and that guy, and this is the lineage of this and that, and that. It's just, I mean, it's a it's a tough slog, right? You know? But this is not a this is not a commercial to not read through the Bible in the year, by the way, okay? Because every now and then you find something. I and I found this reading through the Bible in the year. This is 1 Chronicles 16, verse 4. 1 Chronicles 16, verse 4. And he appointed some of the Levites to minister before the ark of the Lord, to commemorate, to thank, and to praise the Lord God of Israel. Asaph was the chief, and next to him was Zachariah, then Jael, then somebody I'm not gonna try to pronounce, then Jael, and then Matthias, and then Eliab and then Benaniah and Obed-Edom. Wait a second. Obed-Edom? Didn't we just hear his name earlier on? Obed Edom, I I that that sounds familiar to me. Let's let's skip up to verse 37. So they left Asaph and his brothers, and and they're before the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord to minister before the ark regularly and every day, day's work required. And Obed Edom and his 68 brethren? Be fruitful and multiply, I guess. Holy buckets, that's a lot of brethren. Obed-Edom and his 68 brethren, including Obed Edom, the son of Jeduthum and Hosea, were gatekeepers. Obed Edom had the Ark of the Covenant at his house for three months. And then they took it, and he said, I ain't gonna be without this. You see, he said, I've been in the presence of God now for three months, and I am not gonna be without this. So wherever this goes, we're going, and all y'all are coming with me. That's what he said to his family because they were blessed by being in the presence of God. You see, folks, when you get into the presence of God and you understand, when you get into the presence of God and you experience the fullness that he has for you, then you just don't settle for less. We here at Amarillo Fellowship Church want to be passionate about pursuing the presence of God. What does that look like? It means you engage your heart differently, maybe. You see, another thing that we talk about is taking your next step. Well, what's your next step in being a passionate worshiper? Maybe it's not leaping and whirling about like David did right out of the gate. Maybe it's the way you engage your heart. Maybe it's going from here to here. The Bible tells us to lift holy hands and worship. Maybe it's about the way you engage in worship. Maybe it's about not looking around and focusing on him. I guarantee you, if you feed that passion for his presence, it'll be worth it. If you feed that passion, you feed that hunger, it'll be worth it. And I'm gonna give you an opportunity to take that next step right now. If you'll stand with me, the altar ministry team is gonna come, the worship team is gonna come, and we're gonna take a minute and we're gonna spend a little bit of time in worship. I want to encourage you to engage your heart, to engage your faith, to step into that next step in becoming a passionate worshiper. I want to encourage you because when we worship him with all that we have, folks, you don't have to dance and whirl to be a passionate worshiper. You just have to engage your heart and say, God, you matter more than anything else. God, you matter more than all this other stuff. God, I'm gonna treat you and put you in the right place. I'm gonna make you who I look to, not all this other stuff. I'm gonna focus my attention on you. We're gonna step into worship together and we're gonna do that. We're gonna pursue the presence of God. We also have the altar ministry team here. If you have a need, if you have if you need someone to come into agreement with you about anything, if you need someone to just pray with you, just to be with you, we're here and we're ready to do that. I just want us to enter into God, we're here for you. We're here to enter into your presence, we're here to pursue you, and uh, and God, I thank you that if we seek you, we will find you. And so we're gonna do that right now as we worship. Jesus