Welcome to the Lansdale Life Church podcast.
If you're seeking a closer relationship with Jesus Christ, this podcast is for you.
Thank you for joining us today.
Amazing. So today we're going to talk about solitude with the Savior.
You know, as you know, we finished up the book of Hebrews and we go through books of the Bible,
but I really thought it was a good time, you know, to take a pause and go over some, you know, basics of our Christian walk,
our Christian faith, you know, leading up to Resurrection Day because there's going to be some interruptions anyway.
In fact, we have a very special presentation of the Seder meal.
I think that was presented and already mentioned the bulletin.
So that's coming up on the 15th.
So now we're talking about, you know, basics of our faith, things that we should all know about and engage in.
And last week, do you remember what last week was about? Wow.
Sharing our faith, right? I know you do. You're just being coy, right?
But sharing our faith and I won't ask for a show of hands who had the opportunity to share their faith this past week.
But remember, it was relationally, you know, people, our family, friends, acquaintances.
And, you know, that should be an easy layup.
But then there's also the spontaneous opportunities to share our faith with the Amazon driver, right?
The waitress, the waiter, people we come across, you know.
And then finally, the evangelical way of sharing our faith that you are intentionally.
I know that's a little more difficult sometimes to find the right venue, the right team to join.
But just, you know, keep that in the back of your mind to really be available and ready.
Always be prepared to share the reason for the hope that is within you, right?
But this week we're going to talk about solitude.
And what I mean by that is time alone with God.
You know, that time that we can just meditate and receive from God.
Solitude is really getting with God and allowing Him to pour into us so we can pour out to others, right?
Remember that see a Galilee picture, you know, how the water flows through and out the other end to pour out.
We always should be pouring out. And so solitude is a time that we can really get with God and receive vision,
receive insight, and really just to marinate in His love for us and be centered in our whole purpose in life
is to be in community with God. That's what solitude is, you know.
And this world is so busy, isn't it? I mean, it's crazy.
We're getting bombarded constantly with solicitations, with opportunities, with invitations.
You know, we're just getting bombarded. My phone is always lighting up with another short popping up and whatever.
You know, there's constantly bombardment of information that just can cloud our whole mind.
Is your brain ever just congested with too much information, you know?
I turn on the radio and I'm on my way here with Jill and we usually just listen to worship music
because I don't really like a lot of distraction, but I know there's a lot going on in Iran.
And I'm thinking, I don't want to come here, be clueless, so I turn it on and man, I mean, there's a lot of things happening.
We're not going to talk about that because we probably really don't know half of it, but we'll soon see.
But there seems to be some movement over there and hopefully it's a good thing, you know, time will tell.
But we're being constantly, you know, just riveted with things in this world.
I checked my email just as I'm thinking about this this morning.
I said, I wonder how many emails I really get per day, you know, because I'm still in business and stuff too.
And so I checked my email from Friday and it was just an ordinary Friday.
And the ones that got through were 139 emails.
You probably get more, I don't know. But if I went into spam, I'd probably see double that.
I mean, can you imagine like that much? And it's too much to even stop, right?
It's like, oh, whatever, you know, because you're constantly trying to attract us to something.
And yet the Lord is saying, well, you just drop all that and listen to me because I am the author and finisher of your faith.
You know, I know your destiny. I know why you're here. I know what you want.
I want you to be doing. Listen to me.
You know, a lot of times it could be good things we're involved in and things that are noble and needed.
But still, if we're not receiving from God, we're missing the point.
I always picture that, you know, the Mary Martha, you know, situation when Jesus is over their house and, you know, speaking to them.
And, you know, Mary's just like, Jesus, like he's here and she's just soaking it all in. Right.
And Martha's like, oh, there's so much to do here. You've got to make some food.
We've got to get, you know, there's so much to do. That's all she's thinking about is to to prepare things for who's there.
And she's missing the point. And she was saying like and Martha starts saying, you know, Jesus, don't you care that I'm doing everything around here?
You know, and you're and you're letting her get off. And what is and what does the Lord say to her, Martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled about many things.
But one thing is needed. And Mary has chosen that good part, which will not be taken away from her.
You know, I will confess and I know you won't tell anyone. So I'm in the I'm in a good confessional here, but I could be Martha a lot.
I really can't because I could see so much needs to get done and and there's no one else around here to do it.
I just got to do it. And, you know, things will get done if I'm not receiving from Christ first.
I won't be doing the right things anyway. Right. I remember we started the book of Joshua on Wednesday nights.
You got to come out. I love Joshua. Right. Jesse did a great job this past Wednesday night.
Not sure who's on the rotation next Wednesday, but it's going to be tremendous.
And Joshua, you know, leads the people into into the Promised Land and they just cross over the Jordan and they're getting ready.
And they're looking at Jericho and thinking, oh, man, we got to do something here.
And and they're probably just thinking, how are we going to forge this ramp and get over this thing?
And we don't know what to do. Right. But we're going to do it.
God brought us here. We're going to get it done. So imagine how clouded Joshua's mind is.
Like, you know, I got to come up with a plan. I got to prepare. I got to, you know, I got to muster up the right resources and the right army to defeat Jericho.
He's got so much jammed in that brain of his right. And so what does he do?
He's walking up and he sees this guy with a sword in the way. And and it came to pass when Joshua was by Jericho.
That he lifted his eyes and looked and behold, a man stood opposite him with his sword drawn in his hand.
And Joshua went to him and said, are you for us or are you for our adversaries?
Imagine asking God or his assigned messenger, are you with me, Lord, or are you against me?
Wrong question. Right. The question is, am I for him? Right. I got it all wrong. Right.
And so he said, no, but as commander of the army of the Lord, I have now come.
And Joshua fell on his face to the earth and worship and said to him, what does my Lord say to his servant?
Joshua instantly got it. He realized, wait a minute. I am all wrong here.
I need to be receiving the plan from him. I'm so burdened with how I'm going to get over this gigantic wall of Jericho.
And he's got the plan to just knock it down from the outside in. You know, when we do it the Lord's way, it's easy.
You ever notice that really?
You know, Jesus say, come to me all you weary and heavy lay and I will give you rest for your souls.
You know, he doesn't say I'm going to give you more to worry about.
I'm going to give you a heavier load. I'm going to give you more work to do now. Come on in.
You already, you know, that's not a great invitation. He's saying, if you do it my way, you will catch more fish.
You know, Peter, James and John and and the others, you know, they caught fish when they were with Jesus. Right.
He makes everything easier when we do it his way. So spending time with him is not a waste of time.
It's the right thing to do. And that's what we need to do is we need to set that time apart to get with him and say, Lord, I have no clue what I'm doing.
I just don't know what I'm doing. I need to receive from you. It's amazing.
I wonder how much we would actually get done if we would spend more time not doing anything and receiving from him.
And that time is just so essential. And Jesus really personifies that in this passage we're about to read because the Lord goes away by himself.
We're only going to read maybe 10 verses or something of this chapter. But it's it's significant because if Jesus, who is the word of God, could have known everything.
But he chose to demonstrate a dependence on his father to receive from him. He didn't need to do that.
He made himself need to do that for our sake, just like he did not need to be baptized. He made himself needed to be baptized for our sake to demonstrate.
This is how you get things done when you just ask me how to get it done. And so this is what we're going to look at.
So leading up to this, you know, John the Baptist was arrested because he called out Herod on his sin, you know, adultery with his brother's wife.
And so at a party, they're probably all drunk and Herod's like saying, oh, your daughter is so beautiful.
I'll give you anything you want. I never understood that oath. The dumbest thing.
I'll give you whatever you want just because you're beautiful and you can dance.
And so she says, give me John the Baptist head on a platter at the at the instruction of her mom.
And so he gives the orders and here, John the Baptist, the prophet, the herald of Jesus Christ is beheaded on the bequest of some hot little number dancing in front of them that entices him to do something really dumb.
I'm just thinking how many men have made huge errors in the same way, you know.
But anyway, so that's where we're at. And let's pick it up in.
Let's see here.
Verse 12.
And then John the Baptist disciples came and took away the body of John the Baptist and buried it and went and told Jesus.
And verse 13.
Then Jesus heard it. He departed from there by boat to a deserted place by himself.
But when the multitudes heard it, they followed him on foot from the cities.
And when Jesus went out, he saw the great multitude and he was moved with compassion for them and he healed their sick.
And when it was evening, his disciples came to him saying, this is a deserted place and the hour is already late.
Send the multitudes away that they may go into the villages and buy themselves food.
But you know what happened?
Jesus said, why?
You give them something to eat.
And he ended up supernaturally miraculously feeding five thousand men and who knows how many others.
And then having even a leftovers to hold on to for later.
The reason I'm skipping over that is the feeding of the five thousand isn't really the focus.
It's the fact that Jesus was just told that his cousin was beheaded.
This is after John the Baptist was in prison and sent messengers to Jesus in a kind of paraphrasical way saying, cousin,
are you really the one I'm waiting for?
And you can read between the lines saying like, I'm in here.
Why am I in here if you're the one?
And now he's beheaded.
You just picture that weight.
Now, I know there's reasons and we can get into theological reasons.
And I think a lot of them are valid.
Why John the Baptist was meant to die in prison as a symbol of the law and so forth.
We can go those places and all.
But let's just take the humanity of Jesus Christ.
His cousin is beheaded.
I mean, you think there was some sadness there and sorrow.
The very man who introduced the world to him is now dead.
You know, that's some weight.
Right.
And we didn't read.
But there's another portion of scripture and other gospel that tells us in the midst of all this,
his first twelve disciples just came back and told him, man, you should hear what just happened.
The demons are being cast out.
You know, this is amazing.
So here Jesus is hearing amazing news.
And then he's hearing about his cousin.
Like, isn't that life a roller coaster of emotions?
Like one minute you're up, the next minute you're down.
Just a roller coaster.
And here's Jesus just being inundated with.
That's awesome.
That's horrible.
You know, what did he do?
He went away to be alone with his father and say, Father, just just give me a help me here.
Process this.
You know, he's fully man and fully God.
How do I process this?
You know, I think that's what we need to do.
You know, when we're inundated with emotions that are like a roller coaster that are just tearing us apart.
Lord, I got to get with you.
We have to have a talk.
You know, have you ever just talked with God and just walked?
I love pacing.
Talking to God.
I love walking.
Talking to God.
I love laying on my face.
Talking to God.
I just have you ever just driven somewhere and just kept talking to God like he's a friend.
Like he's sitting next to your Lord.
Like, I know what you're going to say.
I know.
I know Lord, but still I don't like it.
Or what am I supposed to do?
I knew I thought of that.
But how about something else?
You have somebody watched you who was driving alongside you like that guy's nuts.
You know, look at him.
He's talking to himself or he has earbuds in his ears.
But no, you're just having a conversation.
If you don't do that, I highly recommend it.
Just talk to God like a friend.
Like a counselor because he is.
And just say, Lord, I don't know what to do with this information.
Please help me.
Help me process this.
So he leaves and then he feeds the 5,000.
And then verse 22, immediately, listen to this,
Jesus made his disciples get into the boat
and go before him to the other side while he sent the multitudes away.
And when he had sent the multitudes away,
he went up on the mountain by himself to pray.
Again, another gospel fills in a little gap here.
That's why it's so great to read all the gospels and line them up.
I don't know if you have a Bible, a study Bible,
but you should get one because it tells you where else to find those stories.
And it's good to read them parallel to each other
because one gospel will fill in a spot that wasn't mentioned in another gospel.
And we read here in John chapter 6 verse 15
that something else also happened during this time,
that therefore when Jesus perceived that they were about to come
and take him by force to make him king,
he departed again to the mountain by himself alone.
So he had to leave again. He sent his disciples, you go across the sea.
Of course, he's going to go rescue them by walking across the sea and all that.
But before that, he's like, they're trying to force me to be their king.
Imagine that, okay? Just think about Jesus, right?
Now he knew he had purpose.
I'm not saying he was being tempted to be their earthly king.
I'm not saying that.
But they were trying to force him.
Now they tried to force him to do a lot of things.
He'd walk right through them, right?
So they couldn't make him do anything.
But just imagine like, man, they're getting this all wrong.
Like they love my food I provide, okay?
They love the fact that they think I'm going to take down Rome
and make Israel the ruling nation again.
They got it wrong. They got everything wrong.
Just imagine the turmoil that the Lord realized this world is in
and how dependent they are on truth.
And so after all this roller coaster, he just feeds 5,000.
Suddenly the people who are just fed are now saying,
he's our king, make him be our king.
Let's go get him.
He's just like, Lord, I need to get with you, Father God,
and just help me get a grasp of your will.
You know, there's a lot of people in this world
that try to derail God's will for our lives.
And even people who have good intentions, you know?
They say, no, you should be doing that.
Yeah, but I know the Lord is calling me to do this.
Yeah, but you really should be doing that.
But I really know the Lord said to do this.
Jesus was no different.
The world was trying to make him conform to it.
When he was saying, no, you have to conform to me.
I love Romans 12.2, just thought of that right here.
You know, don't be conformed to the patterns of this world,
but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
Then you will be able to prove the good, acceptable,
and perfect will of God.
You know, Jesus always went to the Father and says,
all right, Father, what's your will?
Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
I want your will.
The only way we can do that is to get alone with God,
away from the distractions, the milieu of life,
the continual attraction-getting of our minds and hearts,
and say, Lord, I just want to rest in you.
I want to be refocused.
It's so important to do that.
Amen.
Amen, thank you, Frank.
You know, the Lord did this all the time.
In fact, Mark 1, 34, 35,
after healing and delivering many people, right,
they're all getting healed of diseases,
casting out demons.
He did not allow demons to speak because they knew him.
That's an interesting study.
Now, in the morning, having risen a long while before the daylight,
he went out and departed to a solitary place,
and there he prayed.
He would heal, then he'd go and hide,
not hide from people.
Just hide to be with his father.
He would serve, feed the 5,000,
go back to Dad.
I think we did pretty good there, Father.
What do we got next?
Okay, good.
I'll see you soon.
Boom, serves, goes back.
You know, that's his pattern.
His pattern is to be filled up
and to be spoken to
and receive word and instruction,
and now go and release it
to who he's meant to release it to.
Another example of this
is Luke 5 and Luke 6.
And again, it says that he himself
often withdrew into the wilderness
and prayed.
And Luke 6, 12, 13,
now came to pass in those days
that he went out to the mountain to pray
and continued all night in prayer to God.
And when it was day,
he called his disciples to himself
and from them he chose 12,
whom he also named apostles.
He received from the Father.
Okay, got it.
He went back down,
you're the disciples.
You see how that works?
Like, it's like he makes decisions
based on his time alone with his Father.
You know, I share a lot.
I don't sleep super well at night.
It's not worries.
It's just, I just don't sleep long, right?
And actually last night you're in luck.
I got too much sleep, so I'm a little edgy, right?
But I got about six hours last night,
but usually it's about four to five, you know?
But you know, Jesus didn't sleep much.
When I look at this, I'm like,
all right, I'm okay.
Because he doesn't sleep much either.
He up all night.
I haven't done one of them recently anyway.
But you know, he just receives, you know?
And that's his pattern.
He's receiving and he's pouring out.
When you think about his ministry,
his earthly ministry started in the wilderness,
in solitude, right?
With his Father being tempted for 40 days and 40 nights
and it neared the end where?
In the Garden of Gethsemane,
alone with his Father, receiving.
And even in his flesh saying,
does it have to be this way?
Pop.
But not my will, but yours be done.
And I'm not suggesting in any moment he ever questioned
or resisted,
but he was fully man and fully God.
So he had those emotions.
You know, if he didn't have those emotions,
then really he could not represent us, right?
As the perfect sacrifice.
In all ways, he felt what we feel
and yet still was sinless through his whole life.
That's just amazing.
It began and it neared the end in solitude.
It's so important to have that mindset of just,
I'm not wasting time being alone with God.
I'm actually receiving from God.
You know, it's when he gives you something to share
or something to do and you're sure about it,
you can then go out and release it into the public.
I love Matthew 10, 27 that says,
whatever I tell you in the dark, speak in the light
and what you hear in your ear,
meaning the whisper, preach on the housetops.
You know, it's like you're receiving from the Lord
in that solitude and you're saying,
thank you Lord, now I am ready to release it.
There's so many examples in the Word
that we see this solitude becoming something.
Moses out in the wilderness with those sheep
and you know, I'm sure there's a couple helpers with him,
but really it's a lot of alone time.
That's when the Lord speaks to him from the burning bush.
There's so many examples of this alone time
that we see in the Word.
Samuel, how much time did he spend alone in the tabernacle?
Just, he lived there, okay?
And he just was waiting for God
and the Lord filled him up so much,
the Word says that when he spoke,
not a word of Samuel fell to the ground.
In other words, like Samuel speaking.
You know, we gotta hear it because it's from God.
Samuel just spoke on behalf of God.
We see Elijah just spending so much alone time
with God and how powerful was he, right?
And we see a prototype of him in John the Baptist,
you know, spending alone time in the wilderness
receiving boldness, receiving messages.
That's what he wants to do with us.
He wants to speak to us.
In fact, Paul writes to the Galatians,
he said actually that he spent three years in Arabia
just with God receiving from him
before he was taught by anyone.
Receiving from God, that's what the Lord wants to do.
He wants to speak to us in that intimate place
and get alone with us.
And so, how do we do this?
And I have this slide up there that says,
how do we get alone with God
and what do we do when we get there?
Now, I know this could be like common sense
to a lot of us.
It can be, you know, Christianity 101,
but how much of us forget the basics?
I do.
I don't know about you, but I'm speaking for me.
A lot of times I forget the basics of the walk of life.
I get up in the morning and I immediately check my email,
you know, or I immediately start to read my Bible
and then start writing about something,
you know, instead of just, no, no, no,
I'm getting on my face
and I'm just letting God tell me what to do.
You know, we need to surrender to His will,
not my will, but yours be done.
The only reason, way we're gonna know His will
is when we just block everything out
and listen for it, amen.
And so, when we get alone with God, what do we do?
You know, just pray.
And pray not like to tell God what you want Him to do.
You can do that too, but just pray.
I really believe and, you know,
I know this gets funny with people and all,
but I love praying in tongues,
when I don't know what to pray about.
I just like babbling in the Spirit.
And it's amazing, you know, you just,
you babble long enough, you start to know
what you're babbling.
Because He starts to show you the slideshow.
I shared this before, but you almost see,
oh, them? I didn't think of them in years.
Oh, that, that, that, I better get a notepad.
All right, next.
Okay, got it.
Do you ever do that?
The Lord's telling you stuff and you're like,
I can't handle all this, all right.
Let me go, let me go get a notepad
and start writing the list down, okay.
Because when I'm done here,
I got to do something about some of these things
because there's so much.
In fact, when you pray in the tongue,
sometimes it's like an avalanche.
Like, all right, Lord, you know, I'm,
I'm one person, you're pouring a fire hydrant
through a funnel, all right.
And my funnel is getting smaller and smaller.
Just Lord, just let me write some of this down.
Because he just, all right, you asked for it.
Here we go, boom.
But you just let them flow through and just write it down.
That's another thing is journaling.
Reading scripture, you know, a lot of times,
you know, when you pray and all, you say,
Lord, and you just open up, you know, a passage, you know,
I'm not going to tell you how to read the Bible.
I love reading it in chunks,
and I love marinating and meditating on little bits too.
Because it's all good, okay.
But like a lot of times, just those few verses,
just really like, wow, let me just soak that in
and just picture it, you know.
Just really meditate on what that is.
That's like beautiful, Lord.
And what does it look in my life?
How does your word look when I live it?
Like just, I'm just soaking you in, Lord.
Just wash over me.
Wash me with your word, you know.
And we could just get soaked up.
You ever just get, like it's like marinating meat, okay.
Just soaking in his word, you know,
you taste like him through and through.
You're his fragrance to the whole world.
You're just, you're one with him
because he seeped into every part of you.
You know, we just have to let him,
we have to just soak in him.
It's like a sponge, you know.
You just like plunge that sponge in there
and you press down and get all that air out
and it just, he just soaks you.
You just soak him in.
You ever do that?
Just like really soak in his goodness and his word,
who he is, what he's done, what he will do.
He's the same yesterday, today and forever.
And you are like him, you are one with him.
That's what Jesus prayed in John 17,
that they would be one with us, just as I am one with you.
You are the embodiment of Christ on earth
as he is in heaven, as Christ is,
so are you in this world, 1 John 4, 17.
You know, you are his radiance on earth.
I'm not saying you're Jesus, but you got Jesus.
He's in you, you are his temple.
You know, just soak that in, you know.
Journal these things, meditate on them,
ask, seek, knock.
Lord, what would you have your servant today do?
Because I want to be your servant.
You know, it's amazing, I looked up this word,
I studied this word, Godliness.
And you know, Godliness is actually a hybrid
of the idea that you're a servant,
but you're a well rewarded servant.
You're rich.
You're hanging out with the king, you're rich.
And I mean that in spiritual prosperity,
in every way that you're meant to be,
you're rich in him, amen, amen.
As the worship team comes up, we're gonna have communion.
You remember the, I just thought of this,
remember the queen of the south, okay,
went to visit Solomon, and she was just,
she said she was wrecked when she went to see Solomon.
She's like, are you kidding me?
Like, everything's gold.
Like, everything's perfect.
How can any kingdom be run so perfect,
efficient, glorious?
And she said there was nothing,
her spirit left her, she just didn't know what to even,
she's like, I feel like I'm almost with God here
because it was just so overwhelming
to be in the presence of Solomon
and to see how well rewarded all of his servants were
because they were just, he said, you know,
your servants are so blessed to be in your presence.
And you know what, that's Solomon.
That's some ordinary king
that did not do a lot of good things.
Yet we have the king of kings.
We have the glorious Lord who runs a kingdom
that has no unfairness, no imbalance, no idolatry,
nothing to be scorned, nothing wrong.
He runs a perfect kingdom, and we are his servants,
but not only servants, we're friends.
Jesus said, you know, I no longer call you servants,
I call you friends
because servants don't know what the master is doing.
I tell you everything.
I don't hold back anything from you.
You wanna know what I'm doing?
I wanna tell you what I'm doing.
The Lord makes himself able to be figured out.
He's very complex, and we don't know a lot about him,
but anything you wanna know, he's going to share with you
because he's relying by choice on us
to bring his kingdom on earth as it is in heaven.
Do you guys know what our mission statement is?
I know you do.
You're just being coy again.
But it's to bring the kingdom.
Isn't that a good mission statement?
We've prayed a lot about that.
We pray that we would have an easy mission statement,
something that is easy to remember.
And it really is.
Isn't that easy to remember?
Bring the kingdom.
And you know where we got it from?
We got it from the Lord's Prayer
when he said,
do not look for the kingdom when it's gonna come
because they were waiting for some
some Israel kingdom to take over Rome and so forth.
He said, don't wait for some army to come
rushing down the mountain.
Don't wait for an earthly kingdom.
Don't wait for an earthly army.
Don't ask what direction the kingdom's gonna come from
because you know where the kingdom comes from?
Right here.
The kingdom of God is within you.
Within you.
Like everywhere you go,
the fragrance, the royalty,
the blessings, the glorious riches,
the goodness comes with you.
You bring it.
And then the Lord's Prayer,
he said, pray in this way.
Our Father who art in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come.
Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Who's bringing the kingdom?
There will be some day he's going to create a new heavens
and a new earth and he's going to return.
They're the millennium.
And I'm not saying this is going to be heaven on earth
literally, but we bring the essence,
the goods from heaven.
The gifts of the Spirit are just downloaded into us
so that the world can say,
I've seen an essence of God.
I know he's real because I met Jim.
I know Jesus is alive.
You ever think about that?
They're gonna know Jesus through you.
Isn't that, that's wow.
Yeah, but I can't handle that responsibility.
Solitude.
Rest in the Lord.
Say, Lord, if you want me to be your representative,
your essence, your fragrance on earth,
your temple, there's no way I can do that.
You have to do that.
I'm just, I'm laying here waiting for you to do it.
You know, sometimes when I lay on my face,
you know, before the Lord, and I think of something
about the Lord says that, you know, in the Word,
Israel says, God, don't forget your footstool, Israel.
And you know, we think of that, we think footstool.
That seems so disrespectful,
thinking of someone as a footstool.
And we know the Word says,
you will make your enemy your footstool.
But you know, in the Word, the footstool is actually
an endearing thought in terms of Israel's relation with God,
because he's their king, and he can rest on them.
He can rest his feet on them and relax.
And everything he says, everything he does,
gets absorbed and heard by his footstool.
And I know you might not like thinking of yourself
as a footstool, but when I'm laying on my face thinking,
Lord, I'll be your footstool.
If you want to say some things over me,
I'm ready to receive it.
And then another picture I love thinking about is that
the Word says, if you humble yourself
beneath the mighty hand of the Lord,
he will lift you up.
In due time, I just think about that.
You're on your face on the floor.
He says, all right, let's go.
Let me bring you to where I'm going.
Let me show you what I'm doing.
Let me bring you to that mountaintop place,
just like you brought Moses.
See, let me show you what my plans are.
I'm bringing you in to what I want to do.
Don't you want to know what he's thinking,
what he wants you to do?
That's what I want for me.
That's what I want for us.
I want to be part of his will.
I want to be used in his will.
When I get to heaven, I want to say,
so I didn't miss out on much.
We're going to miss some things,
but we're going to be there.
And that's the important thing. Amen.
Let's have communion.
So, Father God,
you were, you became our sins on the cross,
our sinful life, our sinful nature.
You became a wretchedness on the cross.
When we look at this bread, we see piercings,
we see bruising, we see the evidence of turmoil
and heat, and Lord, you took that all on yourself
and became the living bread.
As we eat this bread, we remember
that you became all of our nastiness on the cross
and was nailed to the cross for us.
We thank you for your surrendered body on the cross.
In Jesus' name, amen.
And Lord, as we drink this cup,
we know the word says without the shedding of blood,
there's no remission of sins taking away,
not just covering over, taking away.
Lord, we thank you for the remission of sins
through your precious blood that you spilled out
for us becoming the perfect sacrifice.
So Lord, we bless you, we thank you.
We owe our very lives, our very eternity to you.
We thank you in Jesus' name, amen.
And so Lord, as we worship you,
Lord God, we thank you that you bring us
into your throne room and you share
the very essence of who you are with us
on those mountaintop experiences
so that we could be fruitful in the valley.
We thank you in Jesus' name, amen.
Let's give the Lord a round of applause, hallelujah.
Thanks for joining us at Lansdale Life Church
as we praise God and discuss His word.
Don't forget to join us for Worship Lives Sunday mornings
at 10 a.m. Eastern on YouTube.
Be blessed and have a great day!