Hello, sandals church.
I want you to know what an honor and a privilege it's to be here.
I already know about you guys because I know and I love your pastors.
Pastor Matt and tammy are some of Lisa's and my closest friends.
I mean, lisa is a best friend.
I invited Tammy to come to Lisa's 60th birthday party right in the middle of COVID And I
snuck her number off my wife's phone and actually asked her.
It was a surprise party.
But I want to say this.
This about your leaders, and I feel like this is my responsibility.
You have some of the greatest leaders in this church.
And the thing I love so much about Pastor Matt is he absolutely loves truth, but yet he's
hilarious.
He has so much joy.
Okay, you save Matt Brown and you start laughing, right?
But yet the man has a heart after God, a heart for truth.
And that's what drew me to him right from the very beginning.
And so I want to say you are blessed.
And if there's nothing more that I say to you that helps you today, but I believe the Holy
Spirit will do it, is that you are in a great church.
And please stay planted in this church, because this leads into.
Right.
What I want to talk to you about today, and that is this.
A couple of years ago, I was doing some research on the state of the church in America, and
I discovered some devastating things in basically, Barna had done some in depth research.
But I want to say this, from the year 2010 to the year 2020, over 45 million americans
stopped praying.
Okay, now that's crazy when you think about it, 45 million, that is 20% of America stopped
praying.
It goes even further.
And that's why I was so excited when Matt asked me to be a part of this prayer series.
The other stat that riveted me was the fact that over 30 million americans from the year
2000 till today have walked away from the faith.
They've basically gone from practicing christians to non practicing christians.
And by non practicing Christian, we're talking about atheists, agnostics, and
spiritualists.
So here's the thing that we've got to ask.
Why are so many people stop praying?
And by the way, Jesus said, men ought to always pray and not to faint.
Luke 18, verse one.
So what's happening?
The people are fainting.
They're walking away from the faith.
I mean, I have a pastor friend who has three son.
He had a couple come up to them.
They had three sons called to ministry, they went to universities, and they came back as
agnostics, all three of them.
All right, so what's going on?
What's happening?
This caused me to go into a really deep dive and I wrote this book called the awe of God.
I believe this is the focus of why we are losing so many people.
Why so many people are not praying is we've lost the healthy fear of God.
And I'm going to say this.
I know I'm speaking to 14 campuses this morning.
Look, you can get this on Amazon.
And in fact, Amazon's got it for a big sale right now.
You're all prime members.
You'll get it in two days.
Okay?
So just go to Amazon.
We've actually got a QR code that will show you at the end of the service.
You can put your phone up.
But I wrote 42 chapters, short chapters, because people don't read today.
And you can read the chapter in seven minutes.
And if you're slow, nine minutes.
Because I really want to get this into you because I want to see a stop to people walking
away from the faith.
So this is the question I had to ask.
Why are so many people stopping to pray?
Why are so many people walking away from the faith?
I believe it's this.
It's the absence of the presence of God.
Now, I want to say this church, listen to me carefully.
The presence of God is a very real aspect of Christianity.
Jesus made a statement in John, chapter 14.
He said, I will love him or her and manifest myself to him or her.
Now, the word manifest is amazing.
It means to reveal clearly, to bring to light.
It means to disclose.
It's when God reveals himself to our physical senses.
It's the tangible presence of God.
Now why is it important?
Because Moses made a statement that I believe is still true today.
He said, your presence among us sets your people and me apart from all other people that
are on the earth.
If you look at psalm one or 16, verse eleven, it says, in your presence is fullness of joy.
Now think about it.
The joy of the Lord is our strength, right?
What is causing people to walk away from the faith?
It's the lack of strength.
They've lost that joy because joy, true joy, is found in the presence of the Lord.
So now comes the big question.
Why are christians today?
When Jesus says, I will manifest myself to you?
Why are christians today not experiencing the tangible presence of God?
All right, here's the answer.
Because of a lack of holiness.
Now, right there, I know a lot of people are going to start getting nervous, okay?
You say the word holiness and people shut down.
And there's actually a pretty good reason for it.
And that is because in the past we have had mean spirited preachers, okay?
I'm talking about pastors, preachers that don't even like people.
Can I say something?
Okay.
If you don't like people, you got no business teaching the Bible.
You should be teaching organic chemistry or physics, okay?
Should not be teaching the Bible.
But these mean spirited preachers made holiness into a bunch of rules and regulations to
govern people's behavior into what they thought was correct.
And that is nothing to do with holiness.
So other people get nervous when they hear the word holiness because they see it as being
dull and boring.
But I love what C.
S.
Lewis says.
C.
S.
Lewis made the statement.
He said how little people know who think that holiness is dull.
When one meets the real thing, it's irresistible.
And so what I want to talk to you about today is the irresistible.
Amen.
Now what happened when people got nervous about holiness?
We had a bunch of pastors and teachers and they were clever and they said, wait a minute,
we can't ignore this subject.
I mean, it's all over the Bible.
If you look at the predominant characteristic of God in the Bible and the angels are crying
out before the throne, holy, holy, holy.
They're not crying love.
I mean, God is love.
He doesn't even have love.
He is love.
They're not crying.
Faithful, faithful, faithful.
God is faithful.
The attribute of God that stands above all others as you read through scripture is
holiness.
If you look at the only description of the church that Jesus is coming back for, it's a
holy church.
It's not a leadership church.
I believe in leadership.
It's not a community church.
I believe in community.
God does too.
He says it's not good that man's alone.
It's not a relevant church.
We're never going to read the lost if we're not relevant, right?
It's a holy church.
So these teachers said, what do we do about this?
Holiness is all over the Bible.
So they came up with a teaching and they said to all of us, don't worry about holiness.
Don't worry at all about it because Jesus is our holiness.
Now here's the problem with what happened.
What they're saying is true, but it's not the full story because what they did basically is
they lumped all holiness into one bucket, when in reality the New Testament shows there's
two buckets of holiness.
All right, the first one is called positional holiness.
What do I mean by positional holiness?
Ephesians one four makes the statement, he chose us in him before the foundation of the
world, that we should be holy and without blame, before him in love.
Now, notice he did that.
He chose us in him, that we should be holy.
So here's what happened before the foundations of the world.
God the Father and the Son had a meeting.
And God says, we're going to create man, but we know the end from the beginning.
We know they're going to mess up.
Would you be willing to go die for them?
And the Son said, yes, of course I would, because I love them all so much.
Right?
So God says, the Father says, when they receive you as their lord, we will declare them
holy at that point.
Okay?
That is positional holiness.
The moment you receive Jesus, you were declared by God to be holy.
All right?
Now, if you look at the apostle Paul, he says, a man leaves his father and mothers joined
to his wife.
The two shall become one.
He said, but this is actually an illustration of the way the church and Jesus are one.
So if you want to really understand how to have an authentic relationship with God, you
look at a marriage.
Now, Lisa and I, 42 years ago this October 2, okay, 42 years ago, she walked down the aisle
of Covenant Presbyterian Church in Lafayette, Indiana.
And on that very day, October 2, 1982, she became my wife.
I got news for you today, in 2024, she is not more my wife today positionally than the day
I married her.
And 40 years from now, she is not going to be more my wife.
Well, it's the same thing with our walk with God.
The moment we got saved, he declared us holy.
And 20 million years from today, we're not going to be more holy than we were the day we
were saved, because that's what God declared.
Are you seeing this?
But now, let me say this.
When Lisa and I got married, something kind of changed.
Because when we were single, Lisa used to flirt with guys.
Okay?
Believe it or not, she did.
Okay.
She would go out with other guys on dates.
She would give guys her phone numbers.
But after we got married, Lisa stopped flirting with guys.
She stopped giving her phone number out.
She stopped going out on dates with other guys.
What happened?
She developed a behavior that matched her position.
Are you getting this?
All right, so now that's called behavioral holiness.
And if you look at what Peter writes in one, Peter 114 and 15, he says, live as children of
obedience to God.
Do not conform yourselves to the evil desires that governed you in your former ignorance
when you did not know the requirements of the gospel.
But as the one who called you is holy, you yourselves also be holy in all your conduct and
manner of living.
Now he's talking about a behavior.
This is behavior holiness.
Now this is important because holiness, without it, you're not going to get the presence of
God.
Okay?
This is the big, big question of the day.
What does holiness have to do with the presence of God?
See, what the legalistic holiness teachers did is they made holiness an end to itself.
They almost made it like a club, when in reality the behavioral holiness is a doorway into
something, and it's the doorway into what every true believer cries out for.
And that's what I want to talk to you about.
What does Holiness have to do with God's presence?
Look at Hebrews, chapter twelve, verse 14.
This is amazing scripture.
It says, pursue Holiness.
Did you hear the word pursue?
Pursue holiness, without which no one will see the Lord.
Okay, now let's talk about this.
First of all, what does the word pursue mean?
In the original language, it is defined as this, to chase after with the intent to
apprehend.
Listen to that carefully.
The word pursue means to chase after with the intent to apprehend.
It speaks of urgency and intensity.
Now let's ask a question here.
Chase after with the intent to apprehend holiness.
Is he talking about positional holiness or behavioral holiness?
Okay, let's just do another example.
Lisa has a Bible study that she goes to on Wednesday mornings, right?
Can you imagine her going to the Bible study?
And they're all doing prayers.
And Lisa looks at the ladies and says, guys, I need you to pray.
I am chasing after with the intent to apprehend.
Being John Bevere's wife, they'd all laugh at her and say, you became his wife 42 years
ago.
What are you talking about?
That wouldn't make any sense.
But if she looked at her girlfriends and she said, hey, girls, pray.
I'm chasing after with the intent to apprehend a behavior that is more befitting John
Bever's wife, they would understand that.
So we know immediately he's not talking about positional holiness.
He's talking about behavioral holiness.
All right?
Now look at this scripture.
Pursue Holiness without which no one will see the Lord.
Now, whoa, whoa, whoa.
Wait a minute.
Everybody is going to see the Lord.
Revelations one, verse seven, says, behold, he comes in the clouds, and every eye will
behold him, even those who pierced him, even those who drove the nails into his hands and
feet at the judgment seat, every eye is going to see him.
So what in the world is he talking about?
In Hebrews 1214, pursue or chase after holiness?
Because without it, no one's going to see the Lord.
What does the word see mean?
All right, let me give you an example here.
I've been a United States citizen now for 65 years.
In that 65 year time period, I think I've been under 13 United States presidents.
I'm under their rulership.
Their decisions affect my life.
I am submitted to their leadership, but I've never seen one of them.
I've never been in the presence of a United States president.
Now they have friends they work with.
They see them on a daily basis.
They work with them.
But I have never been in the presence or seen a United States president.
Well, let me say this.
There are christians.
They're under the lordship of Jesus.
His decisions affect their lives.
But they're not seeing him.
They're not in his presence.
So what he's talking about here is without holiness.
No one's going to enter into the presence of the Lord.
Remember I said holiness is a doorway into something bigger.
It's a doorway into intimacy and enjoying the presence of God.
And this is what every one of us cry out for.
Now let me say this.
I'm going to prove it to you.
Jesus looks at his disciples before he leaves and he makes this statement.
John 1421.
This is really important.
The person who has my commands hear the word commands.
Now people get nervous with commands.
Did you know there's over 500 commands in the New Testament?
Okay, now let me say this.
Commands in the Old Testament were given to earn a relationship with God.
We proved we can never ever keep the commands of God and earn a relationship with him.
That's why Jesus had to die and give us the free gift of salvation.
Correct.
So what are commands for in the New Testament?
They are given to enhance our relationship.
Okay, now I'm going to prove it to you.
The person, I mean, just think about it.
What is Jesus'last words on the Earth?
He said, go into the world and make disciples of all nations.
Right?
Teaching them to observe everything I've commanded.
You remember Jesus said in John 1514, the person who has my commands and keeps them is the
one who really loves me.
Okay.
All right.
So the person who has my commands is John 1421.
And keeps them is the one who really loves me, and I will love him and will show.
Now look at this.
Reveal or manifest myself to him.
I will let myself be clearly seen, pursue holiness without which no one will see the Lord.
I will let myself be clearly seen by him and make myself real to him.
Okay, let me say this.
Let's go back to the marriage.
I am legally married to Lisa Bevere.
I have, actually, a marriage certificate that shows I'm married to Lisa Bevere.
I got it 42 years ago in Indiana.
All right?
Now, I could technically hold that marriage license up and say, babe, we're married.
But if I'm in jumping in bed with other women, I'm going to lose something.
What am I going to lose?
I'm going to lose those moments in which our heads are on the pillow, and she looks at me
and she says something to me from the deepest places of her heart that she wouldn't say to
anybody else.
I guarantee you, I will lose that.
What people lose when they don't chase after holiness is when God whispers those things to
our heart that we've never known before, that people are hungry for.
This is what we lose.
I've written 24 books.
Let me just say it like this.
There's a reason I don't commit adultery against my wife.
And it's not because I know she'll take me out, because she is a sharpshooter, she's a
sniper.
It's because I don't want to lose that intimacy.
Now, there's a reason I don't commit adultery against Jesus.
You say commit adultery?
James makes a pretty clear statement.
James, chapter four.
He says, my brethren, 15 times in this book.
He says, my brethren, you seek a relationship with the world.
You are an adulter.
Who are you committing adultery against?
Jesus.
When we seek to flirt with, date, give our phone number to the very things that drove the
nails into his hands and feet, we're committing adultery against him, and what do we lose?
Yeah, we can technically say, I prayed the sinner's prayer.
Jesus, I got it right here that if I confess you as my lord and savior, I'm a Christian.
But I guarantee you what you're going to lose is when he whispers those secrets in your
heart that you've never known before.
People ask me all the time, they say, how in the world have you written 24 books?
Where do you get all that revelation from?
I am preaching about it right now.
The reason I don't want to commit adultery with the world is I don't want to miss the times
when he whispers those things in my heart that I've never known, never seen before.
The things that will change my life first and change other lives second.
I don't ever want to lose that.
And that, because I've tasted it, is more valuable to me than anything you can offer me
that this world craves and goes after.
So you see the holy.
Yeah.
It's a good place to clap.
I'm okay with that.
So the holiness legalistic teachers, what they did is they removed the beauty of holiness.
Holiness is a doorway that enters into a place of deep intimacy with God.
Jesus said, that person that is chasing after with the intent to apprehend my commands is
the person that I'm going to make myself really known to.
Now, what's interesting is it doesn't say the person who arrives at holiness will be the
one who sees God.
What does that mean?
That means all my life I'm going to be chasing after with the intent to apprehend holiness.
And to be very honest with you, the person who's really doing that actually doesn't become
more proud.
They actually become more humble.
Some of the most godly people that I've been around are the people that are more aware of
their flaws than others that I've met.
Because when you really come to know him, you walk in a deeper humility, because Jesus is
the most humble human being that's ever walked this earth.
He humbled himself to the point of obedience to the father.
He was so dependent that he said, I can't do anything except I see my father do it.
Why did he see his father doing what his father was doing?
Why did he hear what his father was saying and say?
I could only say, what my father was saying is because he walked in a holiness in behavior,
because he is the holy one, and he's called us to be conformed into his image.
And so Paul writes the scripture in two corinthians, chapter six, that I quite frankly
think, why have we ignored this?
But Paul makes a statement, as God says, I will live in them.
I want you to listen to these words.
I will live in them and I will walk among them.
Now, I want us to step back and think about who's talking here.
We're not talking about a Hollywood actor, a great notable athlete.
We're not talking about the president of the United States or somebody else you admire.
We're talking about the one who created the heavens and the earth.
He said, I'm going to live in you and I'm going to walk among you.
Okay, now, you have to understand, we got to remember who this is.
This is the one who put the stars in the universe with his fingers and called everyone by
name.
This is the one who measured the length of the universe with the span of his hand.
This is the one that weighed every drop of water on the planet in the palm of his hand.
This is the one that weighed all the mountains around here that you see all around here.
Okay, in a scales.
This is the one, Isaiah, who was the most godly man in Israel.
God brings him out of his body in Isaiah six, plops him right in front of the throne.
The angels are crying holy, shaking an arena that is seats over a billion beings.
They're crying holy so loud, they're shaking that arena to its foundations.
In heaven, Isaiah sees the Lord and doesn't go, dude, check it out.
There's the man upstairs.
He's on his face, this most godly man in his whole generation, on his face, groveling.
And he cries out, woe is me.
I am completely undone.
Undone means I'm coming apart at the seams.
Because for the first time in his life, he realizes who it is he's really serving.
And the first time in his life, he realizes who he is before this holy God.
You know, I love what Oswald Chambers says.
Oswald Chambers says, when we preach the love of God, there is a danger of forgetting that
the Bible reveals not first the love of God, but the intense, blazing holiness of God with
his love at the center of that holiness.
Okay, so here's Isaiah.
He's crying out, woe to those who call evil good and good evil.
Woe to the drunkard.
Woe to the proud in Isaiah five.
But Isaiah 60 has one glimpse of God, and it's no longer woe to the sinner.
It's woe is me.
If you look at job, God himself said, job is the most godly man on the planet.
Job gets one glimpse of God and he says, I've heard you by the hearing of the ear.
I went to church.
I heard my pastor talking about you.
But now my eye sees you.
I utterly abhor myself.
If you look at Moses, the closest man to God in his generation, he has one glimpse of God
in his glory, and he cries out.
So terrifying is the sight.
He said, I trembled with fear.
If you look at John the apostle, he was the closest one to Jesus.
He had one glimpse of Jesus on the deserted island of Patmos in his glory, and he fell down
like a dead man when he saw him.
I remember when my boys, boy, they were like twelve years old down to four years old.
And this is back when a certain NBA player who I still think is the best NBA player that's
ever played, but he was huge.
He was winning his six world championships.
There were posters of him in the boys rooms.
Their friends would come all over.
All they're talking about is Michael, Michael, Michael, Michael.
Right?
And I got fed up with hearing about Michael, okay?
And I'm an athlete.
I played college at D one athletics.
I mean, I love athletics, okay?
But I was just fed up with hearing about Michael.
And I remember we were on the Atlantic Ocean and I was preaching for a church there in the
Atlantic Ocean.
And they put me up in a hotel tell right on the beach.
And I had Lisa and the four boys with me.
And I remember the Atlantic was stirred up that day.
They were trying to body surf and they were getting slammed.
They were getting sand in their mouth in their suits.
It was great, right?
So I thought, this is my chance.
So we walked up to the hotel room.
I, on purpose, opened the sliding door so they could hear the pounding ocean.
They're all wrapped in their towels.
And I said, guys, I want to have a little dad talk with you.
I said, that's a pretty powerful ocean out there, isn't it?
They went, whoa.
Yeah, whoa.
It's powerful.
I said, it's pretty big ocean, isn't it, guys?
To go, yeah.
I said, you know, you can only see 1 mile out.
It goes another 4000 miles.
And there's another one on the other side, it's a bigger.
And there's two others beside that.
They go, whoa.
And I said, do you know God weighed every drop of that water in the palm of his hands?
And I said, you're enamored with this guy that can jump from a 15 foot line and put a
little ball through a hole.
He went, dad, we got it.
We got it, right?
So you know what happened after that day?
Michael got back into perspective.
See, Isaiah 40 515 says, you are a God who hides yourself.
He hides his glory from us to see if we're going to be enamored with the movie stars, with
the incredible guru businessmen, with the athletes, or if we're going to see his glory
because he's revealed his glory in our hearts.
That's where we see his glory.
He has revealed the glory of God in our hearts in the face of Christ Jesus.
So my boys, what happened is their focus went from that to that.
And all four of them are walking with Jesus.
And all four of them have worked with us in ministry.
So God says, I will watch this in two corinthians six, I will live in them.
Here's promise number one, I'll walk among them.
Promise number two, I'll be their God.
Promise number three, and they'll be my people.
Promise number four, and I will be your father.
Promise five, you will be my sons and daughters.
Promises six and seven, now watch the very next verse, because we have these seven
promises.
I'm putting the number seven in here to make it clear.
Let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit.
Whoa, whoa, wait a minute.
Let us cleanse ourselves.
Do you notice he doesn't say the blood of Jesus is going to cleanse us?
Whoa, Matt.
Pastor Matt, I can't believe you just had this guy in here.
Wait a minute.
Wait a.
Whoa, whoa, whoa.
I am not saying the blood of Jesus does not cleanse us.
Believe me, it cleanses us from all filthiness.
But what I am saying is don't confuse the work of justification with the work of.
Whoa, whoa, wait.
That's a big word.
Those are big words.
The work of justification.
The moment you receive Jesus Christ as your Lord God cleanses you from all sin in the
spirit, you are declared holy and spotless and blameless before God.
But at that very moment, the work of sanctification begins.
That's when what's done on the inside of me is worked out to the outside.
That is called sanctification.
And that we have to cooperate with the grace and the holy fear of God to accomplish.
Notice Paul says that we cleanse ourselves from all, not 99%, but all filthiness of the
flesh and spirit.
Now, let's just talk about this filthiness of the flesh.
Yes.
Let me just show you a couple of scriptures.
I don't know why we don't talk about this anymore.
Because we're hurting people by not talking about it.
If I want to keep you from the presence of God, I'm going to avoid talking about these
things.
Look, at first Thessalonians four.
It says, God's will for you is to be holy, so stay away from all sexual sin.
Can I say something?
It amazes me.
It literally amazes me how many times people will come up to me.
I'm traveling, I'm in a hotel.
They recognize me as an author.
They come up, they talk, oh, yeah, we're living together until we get married next year.
We're just making sure we're financially secure.
And I'm like, you're living together?
And you just said that, like, without even blushing.
Look at this.
He who rejects this does not reject man, but God.
I'm like, have you not read in Hebrews, chapter 13, verse four, marriage is honorable among
all, and the bed undefiled but fornication.
Those who have sex before marriage and adulterers, God will judge.
I mean, have you not read this?
You'd be amazed that 67% of the men right now in churches in America are bound to
pornography.
I was bound to pornography.
I'm not throwing stones.
I got addicted at eleven and I got free May 6, 1985, and I'm still free to this day, thank
God.
And what I'm talking to you about this morning, the awe of God, the holy fear of God is
what set me free and I'm still free to this day.
So men, there is hope, but you know, we know the psalmist said, I will put nothing, I will
be careful to live a blameless life.
I will lead a life of integrity in my own home.
I will refuse to look at anything worthless or wicked.
I will reject perverse ideas and stay away from every evil.
This was David's heart.
Okay?
Did he walk it out 1000%?
Perfectly?
We all know he didn't.
But he was chasing after it.
Do you see what the difference?
There's a difference when somebody goes, hey, I'm just a guy with needs, come on.
You know what?
My marriage bed's not stimulating me anymore.
I need some pornography to kind of get me in the mood.
Really?
Now I understand somebody that goes, I fell into something and I'm trying to get through
it, right?
I understand somebody battling it.
I was battling it for six years after becoming a Christian.
But when we sit there and go, it's okay, we're just human beings, we have needs.
We're actually denying people the privilege of walking into the presence of God and hearing
that word.
That gives me the strength.
So I'm not a statistic of 45 million that stopped praying and 30 million that walked away
from the faith.
Do you understand why I'm saying this?
I'm not saying this to beat you up and say, get into a holiness club.
I'm saying this because I know you're craving to walk with God and to hear his word.
And I have news for you.
Listen, here's the thing.
I'm on a radio program one time and the guy's like, what about the guy that's got problems
with pornography?
And I said, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute.
I had problems with pornography and the Lord set me free and I'm still free today.
Let me just make sure I understand what you're saying.
Are you saying on this live radio broadcast that the blood of Jesus is powerful enough to
get me free from the penalty of sin, but it's just not powerful enough to get me free from
the bondage of sin?
Is that what you're saying?
And the guy went, he realized the foolishness of what he was saying.
And I said, do you understand?
You're keeping people from God's presence.
You're actually encouraging people.
I don't want to do that.
I know what has kept me in the faith, and it's the fact of having intimacy with God, and I
want everybody to have that and enjoy that.
That's what he's called us to.
He's called us to intimacy.
And so, filthiness of the spirit.
Oh, that's another one.
I don't have time for it.
You can see it in the book, because I spent a whole section in the book.
Filthiness of the spirit basically means your motives and intentions.
If you look at Ananias and Sapphira, their acts were just fine as far as their actions.
They gave an offering.
There's nothing wrong with that.
But what caused them to lie about that offering?
They wanted to project themselves.
Project.
Hello.
As being the biggest givers in the church.
So they kept that part of the property, but they wanted to be seen as giving all their
property.
And in acts chapter five, that couple fell over dead.
I mean, that's crazy.
Why?
Because when you lie in the presence of the glory of God, there's going to be a reaction.
Okay, this is what we've got to realize.
God came to liberate us.
We were bound to sin.
We had a nature that sinned, and he liberated us by freeing us.
But now he's given us a choice.
Are we going to listen to our flesh or we're going to listen to our spirit?
Because here's the greatest news of all.
Let's go back to one corinthians six or two corinthians six, and I've got to get there
because we have these promises.
Beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting
holiness in the fear of God.
Here's the thing I want to say.
You're probably sitting there going, John, I've tried to walk in holiness and I've failed.
I've tried to walk in holiness, and I've failed.
I got news for you.
God's given us a way to walk, to have the power to walk a godly life.
And that's called the fear of the Lord.
You say the fear of the Lord.
Wait a minute.
Being scared of God?
No, the fear of the Lord has nothing to do with being afraid of God.
Let me say this before I give you the definition of what the fear of God is.
We are told in Isaiah 33, verse six that the fear of the Lord is God's treasure.
We are told in Isaiah eleven three that the fear of the Lord is Jesus's delight.
Now, there's something to this.
When we're talking about God's treasure and Jesus'delight, we gotta talk about this.
Are you with me?
Okay.
What is the fear of the Lord?
It's not to be scared of God.
It's to be scared of being away from him.
When Moses brought Israel to the mountain and God came down on the mountain, the people ran
away.
And Moses made a statement in Exodus 2020, he said, hey, do not fear because God's come to
test you to see if his fear is in you so that you may not sin.
Wait a minute.
Do not fear because God's come to see if his fear is in you.
Sounds like he's talking out of both sides of his mouth.
No, he's talking about the.
He's differentiating between being scared of God and the fear of the Lord.
There's a difference.
The person who's scared of God is something to hide.
What does Adam do when he sins against the Lord?
He hides from the presence of the Lord.
Person who fears God is nothing to hide.
That person's actually terrified of being away from God.
So if you want your first definition of the holy fear of God, it's to be terrified of being
away from him.
Why are people walking away from God?
Because they lack the fear of God.
Psalm 19 tells us that the fear of the Lord is what gives us the ability to walk with God
forever.
Lucifer led worship right before that throne.
He was anointed to do so.
He didn't fear God.
He didn't endure it in heaven forever.
A third of the angels surrounded God's throne.
They didn't fear God.
They didn't endure forever.
Adam and Eve walked in the presence of God's glory.
They didn't fear God.
They didn't endure forever.
So what is the holy fear of God?
It is when we stand in awe of him.
It's what happened when those boys realized, wow, he held that water in his hand, and we're
all enamored by a guy who can hold a basketball.
Wow.
When you really see him and this is what you'll do in your heart, this is what the fear of
God does.
It opens up your heart so you can behold his glory in your heart.
All of a sudden, the things of this world begin to fade compared to him.
When you don't have him, the things of this world will enamour you.
They will literally cause you to be in awe.
But when you see him, it puts everything in the world back into perspective.
So we fear God by reverencing and honoring him and valuing him above everything and
everyone else.
And here's the really good news.
Fear of the Lord is actually a manifestation of the Holy Spirit.
This is what Jesus delighted in and we can ask God to fill us with that fear, and he does
it.
And all of a sudden now things come into perspective.
That's what I hope happens.
As you go through the awe of God book, I'm really believing that you're going to encounter
the presence of the Lord.
We have had so many testimonies of people that have been changed.
They said, john, I encountered the presence of God and my life is so changed.
This is what we're believing for.
Because I don't want to see any more people walking away from the faith.
I want to encourage you to do Bible studies with it.
We have workbooks.
I'm believing, and God showed me this and I'm going to close.
The final move of his spirit before Jesus returns is going to be a move of the fear of God.
If you look at the Jesus revolution, we found out our daddy loved us.
The love of God keeps us from legalism, but the fear of God keeps us from lawlessness.
And the church that Jesus come back for is a holy church.
I believe this move of the holy awe of God will create the church that Jesus is going to
come back for.
A holy bride without spot or wrinkle.
I hope you got something out of this today.
I love you so much and I want every head bowed, I want every eye closed in all of our
campuses.
The first step to having intimacy with God is to have an authentic, genuine relationship
with him.
When you look at a bride and she puts on a white dress and she walks down an aisle of a
church, she's actually saying something pretty significant.
She's saying goodbye to about 3.9 billion guys.
She's saying, this is the one and only man I'm giving the rest of my life to.
That doesn't make her the perfect bride.
The first week, the first year, the first 50 years, it just means she's given her entire
heart to that groom.
Jesus is called the groom.
We are called the bride.
I know that you could never imagine a young man proposing to a girl and saying, would you
be my wife?
And she squeals with excitement, says, I am so excited to be married to you.
But I did date Jim for two years and I'd like two nights a year in bed with him.
I'll love you more.
You will be my favorite.
But I want two nights with Jim a year.
No bride has ever done that.
And no groom would ever accept that.
Jesus gave himself fully for you so that you could become a child of God.
All he asks for you to do is to do what that bride does.
He doesn't ask any more than what a spouse asks for.
He asks you for your entire heart.
So if you're ready to give your heart to him today and you say, john, I want to give my
life to the lordship of Jesus.
I want you to stand wherever you are.
I just want you to stand.
And the reason I'm asking you to stand right now is because no bride's ever been ashamed of
her groom.
Let me tell you, Jesus gave his life.
He died.
He created you.
But yet he chose to come and be spit on, to be beat, to be so tortured that he wouldn't
even look like a human being by the time he got to that cross.
He did it because he gave his life fully for you.
No bride is ashamed.
Just stand to your feet.
And what I'm going to do is ask now the campus pastors to come forward.
And after I'm done praying, I want them to continue to minister to you.
Heavenly Father, I thank you for every single person that's standing.
Lord, I thank you for every single person that's sitting as well.
I'm asking, Lord, that as the campus pastors lead these men and women that are standing,
that, Jesus, you will fill their heart with your spirit and they will enter into a life of
intimacy with you.
I also pray for every person under the sound of my voice that the spirit of holy fear would
come upon them.
Jesus, you delighted in the fear of the Lord, that manifestation of your spirit.
I pray that every single person under the sound of my voice would delight in the holy awe
of God.
I ask this in Jesus mighty name.
Amen.
Sandals church, thank you so much for joining us for today's sermon with our special guest,
John Brever.
I hope this message was a blessing to you today.
If you would like to partner in the work that Sandals church is doing, you could do so at
give SC.
I love you.
We'll see you next week.