God’s Greatest Desire

Hello and welcome to the Salt Church Podcast. Thank you for tuning in to this week's message. Join us as we explore God's Word providing practical teaching for day-to-day living. The message you are about to hear was recorded live at our Sunday morning worship experience. If you would like to learn more about Salt Church, please visit us at saltchurch.

org. We hope that you are encouraged by today's message. August is, we can tend to get in the summer slump in August, right? I mean, we were vacationing, we're doing all of our stuff. You know, we know September's around the corner, and things are getting ready to get really, really busy, right?

I mean, and school's gonna start back, and we're gonna have to get plugged back in life. So August is kind of that last-ditch effort to do, like, just be lazy, right? And we get into the summer slump, and we do our thing. But sometimes we can get into a spiritual slump this time of year as well. We kind of miss church a little more, we kind of do our thing, you know, we're trying to get our last-minute stuff, and we kind of get disconnected from God in this season.

So I find it interesting, you know, that's why I choose purposefully to do something that kind of leans in a little more. We talk about, you know, with worship and prayer, and just kind of getting reconnected with God, digging a little deeper in Scripture, and seeing where it takes us. So I think it's very, very important that we understand worship. So I think as we go into this new season, and before school starts back, that we learn a little bit about how to connect better with God. Because for many people, I think everybody wants to grow closer to God, if we're believers.

We want to lean into God, we want to hear from God, but often we don't hear from God. We pray prayers, and we feel like they're just going into air, and they're going nowhere, and we're not really connecting with God. You're in the worship service, and Sister Stephanie next to you, she's just like really into it. And she's like, did you feel the presence? And you're probably like, no, but I want to, you know.

And sometimes we get to those places where we really want to connect with God. But the interesting thing is God wants to connect with us as well. He's hungry to connect with us. He wants to connect with us. He wants us to grow closer to Him, to hear Him, to walk with Him, to sense His presence, and His dealings in our lives.

He wants us to be a part of everything we are. He wants us to go back to Genesis, right, where He walked with Adam and Eve in the cool of the garden. And that's His whole approach. He says, I want you to grow closer. So we're calling this series Closer, because we're going to learn how to grow closer to God.

And if you are going through that spiritual slump, perhaps you're that person that's like, I really want to grow closer to God, but I just feel like He's not there. And I'm really leaning into Him, but I don't feel like He's leaning back into me as He says He will in Scripture. Perhaps it is a worship issue. Perhaps that's where we need to go. Maybe there's a worship problem going on in our life.

For so many people, that is the problem. Because worship is more than a song. Worship is more than a place. Worship is more than a Sunday morning gathering. Worship is so much more than that.

So I want to start off by saying this, everyone worships something. Everyone worships something. It doesn't matter who you are, what level on the spectrum of your spiritual life you are. Perhaps you're a dedicated Christian. You're worshiping God.

Or if you're like somewhat in it, you know, you kind of worship, you know God, but you don't really worship Him. Or maybe you're on the far end of the spectrum where you have no relationship with God whatsoever. And you have no desire to have a relationship with God. In fact, you don't even believe God exists. But you do worship something because everybody worships something.

Whatever commands your passions, whatever commands your or demands your adoration, whatever grabs your attention, wherever your focus is, usually that is where we tend to worship, what we tend to worship. Where we're putting our resources, where we're putting our time, where we're putting our thoughts. That's usually the thing we worship. Everybody worships something. Merriam-Webster defines it as this, to regard something with great or extravagant respect, honor, and devotion.

Something we respect, something we honor, and something we devote ourselves to. And worship, and this is a good way of saying it, worship is a response to what you value the most. What we value the most is what we tend to worship. And what do we value, even if we are somebody who lacks any kind of spiritual direction. Let's take Richard Dawkins, for instance, probably a world-renowned atheist scholar.

He has no spiritual leaning. He believes that everything comes by material things, right? But even he worships something. He worships and he devotes his life to science, to numbers, to the idea that everything comes from some kind of mathematical or physiological thing. And he's devoted his life.

He's devoted his attention. He's devoted his education. He's devoted everything to that. So even he worships the idea that we are not of any kind of spiritual nature. Everybody worships something.

And so my question for you today, is God at the top of your list? Is God someone you worship? Is he priority in your life? How do I assess that? Well, what am I worshiping?

Where are you putting your money? Where are you putting your time? Where are you putting your activities? Where are you putting your schedules? And where are you putting your passions?

What do you obsess about more than anything? What is your obsession? That's probably what you're worshiping. And you have to ask yourself, is it God? Is it God that I worship?

Because whatever you worship, you become obsessed with. And whatever you become obsessed with, you begin to imitate. And what you imitate, you become. So if we want to be Christ-like and conform to his image, we obsess about him. But if we're something else, if we have anything else that's priority in our lives, we become those things.

Worship. So where is your worship? In Romans 1, and digging into Romans, it's a very heavy theological book. I mean, just full of just really good fruit theologically. I love Romans for that reason.

You can kind of walk through. Well, some people call it the Christian Constitution because it's a note that says you are free. You know, it's like it's a note that says you have been rescued by the gospel. But here's what the gospel is about. And Paul writes this book to the Romans.

And he starts the book off talking about, particularly in chapter 18, if you want to turn in your Bibles or if you want to look on your note page or you want to follow on the screen. But if you want to take notes, I highly recommend taking notes. I know we don't have a whole lot of time on Sunday mornings, but it's always good to go deeper and read the whole chapter and go further into it. But he starts off in verse 18 in chapter 1 of Romans. Paul is talking about the raft of God and how it's revealed from heaven and unrighteousness and really getting down to the meat of what human nature is about.

They're unrighteous. They're selfish. They're all these things, you know, like there's no truth in them. And then he goes into Romans 20, and he starts to really dig into this idea of worship. And there's so many different things in Romans, but it was just the perfect area for him to talk about worship because it really sets up everything for the rest of the book.

And he talks in verse 20, he says, For the creation of the world, or since the creation of the world, God's invisible qualities, His eternal power, and divine nature have been clearly seen. Being understood from what has been made so that people are without excuse. Now let that sink in for a minute. So from the very beginning of time, eons ago, God has been revealing Himself through nature. In Christian theology, there's two different types of revelation.

There's general revelation and there's special revelation. Here, Paul is giving us a glimpse of general revelation, which is that of the stars and the sky and the earth and everything in it. God is like setting things up in a way that we can know Him, to see His glory. He's been revealing Himself from the beginning of time. And then we have special revelation, which is the Word of God, which is what we have here to be able to help direct us.

That was given through man, through the power and unction of the Holy Spirit, to give us everything we need to walk out this general revelation idea. So through Paul, God is speaking and telling us, I have been, since the beginning of creation, this invisible God has been trying to reveal Himself, or has been revealing Himself to people, and they are without excuse. Now some of you are like, wow, that's pretty heavy. So how does that, so does that mean that, you know, those who are, or don't have the gospel message taken to them, maybe they live on a remote island somewhere. And this kind of answers that question.

Are they, if they don't hear the gospel, are they saved? Do they get an in or whatever? What it says here, it's kind of a yes and no answer. Because yes, in a way, because He's revealing Himself to them in these places, and from the little knowledge that they can understand, from what they can comprehend, they reach for God, or they don't reach for God. They might not have the special revelation before them, but they make a choice at that point whether they want to follow God or not.

Whether they'll walk in righteousness or walk in unrighteousness. And He says right here, from the beginning of time, they've been doing this clearly. They've seen, and they've heard, and they knew, even before there was a word of God. Before it was being revealed to them, they knew, and they understood this thing. So, it's a yes and no.

Yes, sometimes God reveals Himself. Now, hey, do we communicate the gospel? Do we take the gospel to the world? I mean, if God's doing this, if He's revealing Himself for general revelation, why don't we just let God do His thing? He says, no, that's not how it works.

Because out of obedience, He says, we need to go out and reach the far places of the earth. The Great Commission says to the utter parts of the earth, we, the church, are the instrument that God uses to reveal. Because who knows who is not able to know God based on where they are in the world. And God has a perfect plan for us to go out and share the gospel message. So, it doesn't exempt us from sharing the gospel, but it does give us a glimpse of who God is.

And that He is working. And He is doing His thing throughout creation. And we are without excuse. We worship one thing or we worship another. God reveals Himself.

In fact, Acts 17, 2 and 27, this is not on your notes. I kind of popped this in this morning because it kind of came to me. It says, for one man, He made all nations and that they should inhabit the whole earth. And He marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. And God did this so that they would seek Him and perhaps reach out to Him to find Him, though He is not far from any one of us.

You know what that tells me right there? He has marked out places and boundary. Where you are in this world is specifically marked out for you. So that you could find God and you could glorify Him and be used by Him. So, He has already predetermined places and boundaries and things.

And in the mystery of God, it's a really crazy concept to kind of understand, okay, we're called to do a mission and a commission, but at the same time, God is doing His work. You know, the sovereignty of God versus our knowledge and all these things. But really what it comes down to is God is doing His thing. We can't understand it all, but we know that He is revealing Himself through this revelation of Himself. And then it goes on in Romans 1, 21 and 23.

If you shoot down to verse 21, it says, For although they knew God, so He's saying they knew God because they saw Him. He revealed Himself, He marked out the boundaries for Him, and they knew God, they neither glorified Him as God nor gave thanks to Him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal human beings. So they made images of themselves, they condescended God down to themselves, and not only that, they imitated things like birds and animals and reptiles. Some versions say four-legged creatures, so who knows what they were worshiping during that time.

And they became fools. They became fools. He calls them fools. They became foolish and they began to substitute images of the glorious high God for things that look like themselves or lower than themselves, and they began to worship those things who were not God's. They became foolish.

It sounds kind of funny and sounds uninteresting, but, you know, like, I can't believe people would actually stoop to that level, but we do it all the time. In fact, C.S. Lewis says it like this. I love how he says this.

A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word darkness on the walls of His cell. I mean, God's revealing Himself, and it's kind of foolish for us to even think that we can serve something else besides something that we're all searching for something beyond ourselves, and we know it's there. Whether we're believers today here or not, you who may not have a relationship with God, or you're kind of still searching, trying to figure out the whole Jesus thing. I get it. You know, miracles, all these things.

But you know that something is beyond where you are right now. You know that, right? And everybody's seeking, seeking, but we became fools. And I think it's really interesting that we say, wow, what fools. We can look at this and say, what fools.

We can look at, like, Eastern cultures and different ones and how they worship different gods and things like that and say, how foolish is that? But in civilized culture, in the name of progressive thinking, and we have defined and created things. We worship, too. We have gods that we worship. We have little g-gods all the time.

They may not be images. They may not be four-legged creatures. They might not even be human beings. But sometimes they're the worship of ourselves. They're the worship of other things, gods that we.

And here's what happens. When we begin to exchange, and we call this the not-so-great exchange, because what we've done, we've exchanged the worship of God with the worship of other things. And here's what happens, and because I don't have time to read all of this, if you go to verse 24 and 28, it says God gave them over to their lusts and their passions, and they exchanged the truth for lies. It says they received their due penalty for their own errors. And then you go down into verse 29.

It says wickedness. They became unrighteous. They were wicked. They had greed. They were evil.

They were envious of each other. They murdered. They had deceit, molluscs, the slanderers, haters of God. uh I mean, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to their parents, all these things. It just goes down the list.

And what kind of society is that when we exchange our worship? It just ruins society. It ruins what God created, what God wanted, what God established. And we do it all the time. We do it now.

And let me just point out a few of these things. Number one, and I put this down, Western Idols, if you want to fill in your blank there, Western Idols. Western Idols. Why I say Western? Because we tend to focus on things like materialism, for instance.

You know, we like things. We like stuff. We got to have. We live on the highs of having things. And it's like this.

I mean, how many of you...I think somebody removed my Sweet and Low. That's okay. They probably saw it up there and said that didn't look good on the table. But are there any Sweet and Low fans in here?

Okay, okay. Well, this might be not a good point for her. But I remember, you know, I grew up in the South and Sweet Tea was big. And there is nothing like a good glass of Sweet Tea and real sugar. And we would have these functions sometimes.

And I don't know what in the world people were thinking, but they would put Sweet and Low in the Sweet Tea. And I'd drink that Sweet Tea and it was the grossest thing I'd ever tasted in my life. And I'm like, what's wrong with people drinking Sweet and Low in their sweet tea? And what we do in our worship...and I'm sorry, you all, you Sweet and Low.

Just substitute it with something else you don't like, you know, like some other substitute sugar. But there's nothing better than real sugar. There just absolutely is nothing better. I know it makes you fat. I know it doesn't.

But there's nothing better than real sugar. But God, see, He has a real sugar for us. And this real sugar won't make you fat, you know. This will actually make you fat in spirit, you know. And it's healthy, you know.

And He's got it there for you and prepared for you. But we accept substitutes. And those substitutes are these idols, these materialistic ways that we lean into and we need and we want. So it could be anything. It could be golf, you know.

What are you obsessing about? Are you a golf person? Maybe that's all you think about. That's all you do. You miss worship and you miss, you know, all these things with your family because you're just focused on golf, you know.

My father-in-law would tell you in a heartbeat. He had a real addiction to golf. And for years, he didn't even go to church. He was going to the golf course. And when he gave his life to Christ or he came back, rededicated his life to Christ, he didn't play golf for years because of that very thing.

He knew that he had made it an idol in his life. Maybe it's beach life. Now, that's a big one. I know you get slapped around over here at Salt Church because we're a beach church, right? So it's beach life and I jump back, you know, because I don't want people to come at me.

Yeah. We buy big houses next to the beach or small houses, things we can't afford to live closer to the ocean so that we can, you know, consume ourselves into getting to the beach and doing our thing. And we worship those things because they're more important to us than the God who blesses us with these things. Now, let me be careful. These things are good.

You know, these things are good that God gives us. He's blessed us with many good things because he's a good God. That's why we have these things. He's allowed us to live in a nation where we can prosper and we can have things. But when the things take us on, and I know this is a cliche statement, but when the things have us, it's a problem, right?

When we put the priorities in these things and we leave God out of the equation and we lean into this, it could be your job. Man, consumed in my job and my business and I got to get it going. And you don't trust God with it, so you can't let it go anyway. So you form these images in the form of yourself, of human beings. And we put these things.

Now, here's a big one. In just about a month away, we are going to enter into the biggest sports season in America. And I know some of you are going to be like, okay, don't even touch that, Leon. But I'm going to tell you, I have never seen so many people obsessed over football in my life until I moved to Virginia Beach. We're basketball people in Carolina.

See, if I was Eastern Carolina, we can talk basketball as an issue. But here we can talk football for sure. I mean, you know, we don't have great football teams in North Carolina. So you guys from Alabama and you guys from Texas and you guys, you know, around from other areas that have really great college programs. Y'all know all about it.

Right. And but but I'll tell you what, I've never seen such an obsession with that sport. I mean, if it's ever it's everything people talk and they'll show up to the sporting events four hours ahead of time to get the best seed to get their stuff together. And and they'll they'll buy tickets in advance. So they'll do all they can.

But when it comes to worship, when it comes to the house of the Lord, oh, my goodness, they're lucky to get here on the worship set. Right. And that's how we treat God as opposed to our other things. I know this is hard this this season. Y'all picked the right day to come to church because this is what I love beating y'all up a little bit.

I'm beating myself up. And I often do this. I do this myself. But Deuteronomy 6, 14 and 15 says this. Do not follow other gods and the gods of the people around you, because that's really what it is.

The gods of the people around you, they're obsessed. They're out. The people are out there right now. They're consumed in their gods. But but but he says, I don't want you to be with those people.

I want you to to to be with me. I don't want you to be consumed. Don't don't follow the gods of the other people for the Lord, your God who is among you is a jealous God. And I'm going to deal with jealousy in a little a little bit later. So just hold on to that.

So God says, I wish you would shout for me. I wish you would you would clap for me. I wish you would show me show up four hours early for me. That's what God's saying. I wish you would do that because because that's what I really want.

I want your heart. And the title of this series is God's Greatest Desire. And really, that's God's greatest desire. And we're going to talk a little more about that. I'm dealing.

I've been on that first point for a while. So the second point is hedonism. That's that's a study of the philosophy to pursuit of pleasure and sensual self indulgence to bring about life goals such as happiness and things like that. Now, when I was growing up, hedonism was kind of one of those taglines. Oh, you were heeding your heeding, you know, when you grow up in kind of the Bible Belt area.

But hedonism is a very welcome philosophy of the world. It's based on how I feel. If it doesn't feel great, if it doesn't tickle my skin, if it does it, it must not be true. So truth and self-fulfillment comes from how I feel. If it if it feels good, do it because that's the pursuit of happiness.

That's the pursuit of joy. And and Hebrews 1315 says through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer God a sacrifice of praise, the fruit of lips that openly profess his name. So he talks about continually being. It's not about feeling. So when we don't feel it, we continue to worship him when we come to church on Sunday.

And some people have the attitude, well, you know, if it doesn't it doesn't feel like worship, I'm not going to worship. No, no, no, no. You lean in anyway and you worship him anyway, because we're not here for feelings. We're here to glorify God. So people are like, well, I don't want to, you know, these lights are moving around.

And and, you know, when those lights quit moving, maybe I'll worship God. Or when when they cut on more lights in here, maybe I'll worship God or something. You know, you have those attitudes like, no, that's not what it's about. It doesn't matter what's going on. These are just things.

They're here to glorify God. Those are here to glorify God. The loud music is here to glorify God. Whatever it might be that you're keeping your worship from going forward, give up on it. Put it to the side.

Who cares what the style of church is? Who cares what's going on around you? It's about God and glorifying Him. And that's my heart. That's God's heart.

He wants a church that desires to seek Him, who continually offers God a sacrifice of praise. Here is my lips. Here is my everything. Here is my body. And then, thirdly, spectator mentality.

I didn't know how to tag this. The third thing is a spectator mentality. A lot of people come to church and they just want to look. And, well, if I come to church and worship, you know, just being here is worship, right? But God doesn't want spectators.

He wants participators. Well, that's not my personality, Pastor. You know, I'm kind of a quiet guy. Well, what if it's God's personality? What if God desires and wants?

And when you think of God, I think Randy kind of mentioned earlier, I always thought of God, you know, as a sovereign king on the throne, kind of somber. But the Bible actually says God dances over us. That He enjoys us when we reach for Him. James 4.8 says this, Come close to God and God will come close to you.

God doesn't need to move because He's already made to move. You need to make the move. God's already made His move and He's ready for you. Lean into Him. It says, Hebrews 10.

22 says, And then the last point that something that kind of gets in the way of our worship is probably tradition. And I kind of hit on that a little bit in another topic because these kind of build on each other a little bit. But tradition does get in the way. The way we think church is, we replace worship for tradition. We think that because there's not stained glass windows and pews or vice versa, I will hit on the people who are more progressive in their church worship and things like that because there are stained glass windows and pews that you can't worship God.

Oh, I'm just offended or whatever it is because of something silly, you know, as some kind of environmental thing. It doesn't matter the environment you're in. You can be in an ACDC concert and still glorify God. Amen? You can be in the world and glorify God.

Because that's where you're going when you leave here today. You're walking right out into the world. Are you glorifying God? And we base everything on our traditions and we choose not to worship because we let traditions get in the way. Matthew 15, 3 and 9 says, Jesus replied, and why do you break the command of the Lord or of God for the sake of your traditions?

This is Jesus talking to the Pharisees. He says, thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your traditions, you hypocrites. He was really kind of in their face. Elijah was right when he prophesied about you. These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far.

They worship me in vain. Their teachings are merely human rules. We can look the part. We can play the part. We can get tradition all worked up in us.

It needs to be worship needs to be like this. I need a Nicene Creed before the service starts or whatever it might be. Or I'm not going to that church. I'm not going to be a part of it. I'm going to participate or I'm going to talk bad about the fellowships around.

Man, I'm telling you, I have pastor friends in this area that are completely different traditions. And we have no problem, no problem worshiping and serving together. Amen. We are a part of a full community of believers who is reaching. We're all about the same message and name gospel.

Traditions are just a side piece. But what really counts is our hearts fully in and focused on God. Are we worshiping God with our hearts? That's what really matters to God. So God's greatest desire is not clapping or singing necessarily, but it's much deeper than that.

So to kind of enter into the second half of this message and close on some practical points, go to Psalm 50, verse 8 through 15. And I'm reading this out of the NLT because I kind of like how it says this. It says, and this is God speaking to Israel, and he really talks about worship in this scripture. We can gain a lot from what God thinks, what God really wants from us. You know, what does God really want from us?

What does he want us to do? How does he want us to engage with him? And he says this, I have no complaint about your sacrifices or burnt offerings you constantly offer. So the Israelites were constantly offering sacrifices. They were doing everything that God told them to, and that was good.

They were being obedient to God. God had set up a plan in the Old Testament that through bulls and oxen you can connect with me. Your sin is forgiven through those things. But it really was more than that. He says, but I do not need bulls from your barns and goats from your pens.

So even though I told you to do those things because those things had to happen, I don't really need those things. For all the animals of the forest and mountains and all the animals in the field are mine. If I were hungry, I would not tell you for all the world is mine and everything in it. Now, let me just step back there. Does God get hungry?

Of course not. God is spirit, right? That's what he's trying to say, though. He says, if I were hungry, I would tell you. I'd say, feed me.

But I don't really need to be fed because I can feed myself, right? I have control over everything. Do I eat the meat of bulls? Do I drink the blood of goats? Make thankfulness your sacrifice to God and keep the vows you made to the Most High.

Then call on me when you are in trouble and I will rescue you and you will give me glory. So worship is giving God something that he wants. That he wants. Not necessarily needs. Wants.

He wants it. And let me give you three points that we can gather from this scripture. First of all, I can thank him with sincere affection. That's what God desires, to thank him with sincere affection. There's two things I kind of gather from this idea as I was kind of working out because I'm always careful with the nature of God.

Like how do we see the nature of God? And there's a lot of mysteries with how we see God because there's a lot of things we can't understand about his very being and his purpose. And that he alone does not need, but he requires or he desires things. So there's a difference between needing and a desire. So the first point I want to make, it brings delight to God when we worship him.

It brings delight to God. Now, you ever had someone that you did something for and you went out of your way for? Maybe you had a kitchen appliance or something that you really liked or you had a bike that you really liked or whatever, and you felt like you wanted to bless somebody and you went out of your way and you cleaned it up. You got it all ready. Maybe you maybe it was a car, you know, that you had an extra car.

And so this person really needs a car or or this person really needs, you know, some food or something like that. I want to go out of my way and make sure I do it right. And you try to do it well. You try to fix the car, fix the bike, do all those things. And you put money into it and then you give it to them and they're super unappreciated.

It's as if they deserve it, and how does that make you feel? Now, take that to another level, those of you who have children. How does it feel when you have children, and you go out of your way for them, and you do all those things for them, and at times they are unappreciative? But let me just use a personal story, because I think it really kind of sets in tune what I'm thinking about here. So, Friday night, I'm having, Miranda's out, and I have kids at the house, and they're wanting to have, Max calls it a boys' night out.

I don't know what, he thinks boys' night out is actually being in and doing stuff at the house with him. You know, like, let's go to my room and, like, play video games. That's a boys' night out. No girls allowed. I said, okay, let's go have a boys' night out.

But Friday night, we did a boys' night out, but Savannah's allowed. Okay? So, I set out a blanket on the floor, and I start putting food out, and I'm like, oh, Dad, can I have this and that? They thought it was the greatest things. I rented a movie, the movie Shazam.

I don't know if you've seen that. They loved it, and they were watching it, and we were like, I was, like, getting all excited at scenes. Oh, did you see that, Max? Did you see that, Savannah? They're like, yeah, well, you know, and I was just, like, stirring them up, and they were just having a great time.

Savannah needed milk. I'd run to the kitchen, and here's some milk, and just keep it on the blanket, because you're not usually allowed to eat in the living room, and tonight is a special night, you know, and they were just having a great, a great, a great, great time. But doing all those things, and serving them, and giving them a good time wasn't the best part of that night. The best part of that night is when at the end of the night, or the next day, they look at me and says, Dad, thank you so much. That was so fun.

I appreciate you. I mean, they don't say it in those words specifically, but Max looks at me and says, that was the greatest night ever. Savannah's like, thank you, Daddy. Thank you so much. I love that movie.

She's about the most thankful person out. I mean, she might be other things, but she does thank me. One thing she does is thank me. That's what warms my heart. That's what warms my heart.

That's what warms God's heart when we thank Him. When your heavenly Father thanks you, I mean, you thank Him, or does things for you, blesses you, and you thank Him. That's all He desires. That's all He desires. And secondly, it's good for us.

When we thank Him, it's really not about Him needing, because that's what I was trying to get at a second ago. He doesn't need us. It says the rocks will cry out, right? If we don't worship Him, the rocks will cry out. Creation's crying out.

Creation's already worshiping Him. He doesn't need our worship, but He knows it's for us. It's for our well-being. So we give thanks to Him. It takes away, and when we do that, it takes away our selfishness, our self-reliance, and our tendency to lean towards ourselves and focus on the only true God that gives us everything that is good.

It changes our minds. It aims our hearts. And when our affections are stirred towards Him, it transforms us. It transforms us from the inside out. We think differently.

2 Chronicles 16, 9 says this, For the eyes of the Lord range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to Him. So His eyes are wandering and looking. He's looking for people who have thankful hearts and sincere hearts. Secondly, be devoted to Him. Be fully devoted to Him.

Our mission statement or vision statement is to reach people with the life-giving message of Jesus so they may become fully devoted followers. Fully devoted followers. That's the desire of God. That's what God really wants. He wants you to keep your vows, as He says in Psalm, to keep the vows of the Lord.

So don't just date God. We've got a lot of daters. I'll date God. I'll see how He does. And if He doesn't do this, we'll break up for a little while, and then maybe I'll come back to Him.

And then you have long breakups, you know, and then you come back to Him when you need something, you know. He says, Don't date me. Put the ring on and walk down the stinking aisle. You're fully in. Be fully in.

That's what He desires. Romans 12, 1 says, Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices. What is a sacrifice? When we look at the Old Testament, it was an unblemished Lamb of God. It was a perfect Lamb.

When we see Jesus Christ, the sacrifice, what was He? The perfect man, the God-man who walked this earth, who did no wrong. And He's asking us to be the very same. Not by works, but by grace through the avenue of faith, by placing your trust in Him. And when you do that, you set yourself.

Something happens inside of you, and you're walking a different life. Stop going back to the gods of the people. Continue to walk in my way. Be fully in. Be all the way.

Be a living sacrifice. Be sanctified. This idea of sanctification isn't talked about a lot in the church today. I think it's kind of a scary word because we associate sanctified with, I have to be perfect. Sanctification is holiness.

Holiness is not being perfect. Holiness is being set apart for God. Holiness doesn't mean we unwillfully do things once in a while, you know, but we're willfully walking towards God and walking away from the things of the world because we know He has us set apart for a reason because He is our bride. We want to be His beautiful bride. He sees us as a bride, but yet we're tainting the relationship we have with Him because we're not fully devoted.

He says be all in. He says be fully devoted, holy and pleasing to God. This is your true and proper worship. This is real worship. Real worship is when we say, I am set apart.

I am sanctified. I am different. I am not like the world. I'm in the world. I love the gospel, and I want to share the gospel with people, and I'm the first person that will tell you that, and people that know me, I love hanging around sinners because I want to share the gospel with them so bad.

I have an evangelistic gift in me, and I love talking to people who aren't believers, you know, but I know that I'm set apart. I know I can't. There are certain things I can't move into. I can't engage in because I am set apart. I am different, and we need to be different people.

We are holy people. We are set apart, and thirdly and lastly, include Him in everything. Include Him in everything. He's not asking you to give up things you enjoy. Okay?

Let's get that right. If you love surfing, He's not asking you to give up surfing. If you love golf, He's not asking you to give up golf. If you like beach life, He's not asking you to give up beach life. He's just asking you to include Him in it to make Him a priority over it because it's going to be much better if you do that.

If you don't make it a God, He doesn't want, He doesn't even want to be just first. He wants to be center. He wants to be the center of your life. I love how Rick Warren says it. He says, work becomes worship when you dedicate it to God and perform it with an awareness of His presence.

When you, even in work, if there's awareness of His presence, it's great, you know. Deuteronomy 6, 14, and 15 says, do not follow other gods. It's going back to that scripture at the beginning. The God of people around you or the God of people around you. For the Lord, your God, who is among you, is a jealous God.

Now let me hit on that for a second as I close. Let me just hit on that for a second as I close. Jealousy. I remember Oprah Winfrey making a statement many years ago that says, I read that scripture, jealousy, and I just could not serve a God who is jealous. So she renounced her faith based on a jealous God.

It's just a simple misunderstanding of what jealousy really means. From our standpoint, jealousy is a selfish reaction. But from God's standpoint, it's selfless. Because when he looks on his people, he sees people who desperately need him. So what did he do when he saw a people who, in Romans 18 and Romans 19, it says that they chose, I revealed myself to them, but their unrighteousness took place and took over.

And they, they separated themselves from me and they began to worship other things. What did he say? What did he think? Well, obviously he, his heart grieved before the people. So what did he do?

What did he do? Because he was jealous. Because he was jealous because he needed people to serve him. He wanted people to serve him. He didn't need people to serve him.

Let me pull back. But he wanted people to serve him because it's not about his need, but what you need. It was about what you need. So what did he do? He made a way for God to have a relationship with mankind.

So God's greatest desire is that he have a relationship with God's greatest desire. And that's why Romans, if you read through Romans, it says, when you confess Jesus is Lord, you will be saved. What does that, what does that mean? Like confessing Jesus is Lord. It's about, it's, it's more than just coming to church.

It's more, I'm coming to church now. You don't get saved by coming to church. It's good to come to church, but you don't get saved by coming to church. You don't get saved by paying tithes. It's good to pay tithes, but you don't get saved by paying your tithes.

It's good to, to serve in the community, but you're not saved by serving in the community. Those are all outworkings of the goodness of God. But being saved is trusting in a savior. So when God looked on mankind and saw how evil they were because they had chosen false worship, he says, I'm sending my very own son into the world so they can have life so that they can be saved. And when you confess with your mouth and believe in your heart, it's trusting in a savior.

It's reordering your life. It's reprioritizing your life from all the worship that we've allowed in, all the false worship we've allowed in and putting God on the throne. So with heads bowed and eyes closed, I want to ask this one question. And let's just take this moment very seriously because this is the part. If there's anybody here today, and we're not going to embarrass you, we're not going to call you up on stage or anything like that, but I want to give you the opportunity to confess with your mouth and believe in your heart that Jesus, place your trust in him.

He, he did it all. God says, I've made a way, but my true worship is the thing I desire the most is relationship. I just want to be your friend. I want to guide you. I want, I want to walk with you.

I want to give you the best life because I'm in the sky. Would you simply just raise your hand just lightly? I'm not going to embarrass you. Nobody's looking. Say, I'm in God to pray this with me.

Father, I believe that I have fallen short of your commandments. There's no way I could stand up to them, but I believe that you sent your son to die for my sins. I give my life. I give my heart to you today. Come into my life.

Transform me from the inside. I will walk with you from this day forward.