0:00:00 - 0:00:23 Is found in God's purpose. Here is a, a little schematic of an idea. So imagine you're at a track, a running track and someone is on the track and they're trying to talk to you or you're trying to talk with them, you're having a conversation and depending on the size of the track, this could get really 0:00:23 - 0:00:41 ridiculous. But as they're running around the track, you're just gonna hear this, you know, like the tie fighters flying by the sound is gonna increase and then it's gonna decrease and then for a while you won't be able to hear anything and then they come back in to audible range and it gets louder and 0:00:41 - 0:01:08 louder and then it gets quieter and quieter just depending on where the individual is on the orbit. So if instead of a random person, now we're talking about God and, and you're off the track here. Um You know, every analogy is imperfect, but this sort of experience is probably well known where you feel 0:01:07 - 0:01:34 like God is very close at times and then there are times when he's very far away and there's everything in between what I want to suggest to you is that God's voice is found in God's presence. And so if you move closer to the track, you're going to hear him better and, and then you're not putting this 0:01:34 - 0:02:05 extra distance between you and him by being aloof far off from the track. So if this is a representation of, of standing afar off in quotes, it's a phrase you'll find in the scriptures. For example, when enoch came to preach to the people, they found him so unpalatable, we'll say that they stood afar 0:02:04 - 0:02:30 off. They didn't want to be anywhere near this guy. Even the ones that were brave enough to be curious, they left their attendants uh with the camels or whatever when they went to go see him, they said, stay here. And um another example of this that we'll go into later is when the Israelites approached 0:02:30 - 0:02:55 the Lord at Mount Sinai and you have the cyclic closer, further, closer, further, doesn't have to be a, a two stage cycle could be all sorts of in between. But this, it's not consistent and the maximum volume is still quite low. If you move closer, what happens is it raises up the floor, the the quietest 0:02:54 - 0:03:20 the Lord's voice ever is to you becomes louder and of course, it's not shown here, but you can move further away. And that unfortunately is, is quite common and then the ears would get smaller. So here are some scriptures that suggest that God's presence is coupled to his voice, not to say that those 0:03:20 - 0:03:43 are binary things, they're not, they're continuous. Uh It's something that happens by degrees. But the closer you are to his presence, the more he will speak to you, the greater the content of that information will be and the more continuous it will flow continuously, it will flow. So in revelation 41 0:03:42 - 0:04:07 , John writes and after this, I looked and behold, the door was opened in heaven in the first voice which I heard was as it were of a trumpet talking with me which said come up hither and I will show thee things which must be hereafter. So he had to go up to a higher place closer to the presence of the 0:04:07 - 0:04:33 Lord. In order for the Lord to communicate to him certain things, those things were not available in lower realms or further away from the Lord, he had to draw nearer and that was the order. He got an invitation from where he stood. But until he accepted that invitation, the additional information could 0:04:32 - 0:05:00 not come because it could only be delivered closer to the Lord's presence. In Deuteronomy 531 the Lord says to Moses as for thee, stand thou here by me and I will speak unto thee all the commandments and the statutes and the judgments which thou shalt teach them, who is them. They are the Israelites 0:04:59 - 0:05:33 who are not there because they can't come up and they won't submit to the process to come up that they may do them in the land, which I gave them to excuse me, which I give them future to possess it. So this is interesting. So Moses is, is drawn up into the presence of the Lord in order to receive instructions 0:05:32 - 0:06:02 on how these people who are not, there have to change in order to be worthy to live in a land that is closer to him. There's a lot in that. It's very valuable stuff in Exodus 2522 it says in there, I will meet with thee and I will commune with thee from above the mercy seat from between the two Cherubs 0:06:01 - 0:06:25 which are upon the ark of the testimony and of all things which I give thee in commandment unto the Children of Israel. So here the Lord is, is speaking with Moses again and he's telling him how this is gonna work with Israel. He says, so he's describing the Holy of Holies where the ark of the testimony 0:06:24 - 0:06:48 is the ark of the covenant. And he says, I will speak to them from between the two Cherubs and those were the, the angels that were on the lid of the ark of the covenant. And that's where his glory dwelled in that whole Tabernacle. That's where it was in, in its greatest intensity, that's where it was 0:06:47 - 0:07:09 . And of course, access to that was limited. It was limited after Moses, it was limited to the high priest on the day of atonement. He was the only one that could go in there just on one day. There's a lengthy procedure to prepare. So God is saying here that there were things he had to say that could 0:07:09 - 0:07:34 only be received in the holy of Holies. And so if you wanted to hear them, that's where you'd have to go. Luke 119. And the angel answering said unto him, I am Gabriel that stand in the presence of God and am sent to speak unto thee and to show thee these glad tidings. This is when Gabriel went to visit 0:07:33 - 0:08:05 the Father Zacharias, the father of John, the Baptist. I think, sorry, that might be Joseph. I might be telling you something incorrect. Let me just verify that. Sorry, please hold. Yep, Zacharias shoo shoo. I thought I'd lose all of my credibility by making one mistake because that's how people are 0:08:05 - 0:08:30 . Ok. So um so Gabriel came and he said uh I am Gabriel to stand in the presence of God. Now, Gabriel is a mighty angel. Not all angels, you probably don't know this, not all angels can say I stand in the presence of God turns out that, that not all of them are there. If you wanna know which ones are 0:08:30 - 0:00:00 there, it's in the scriptures. Uh not by name because by name, only three I believe are named in the Bible at least. So Gabriel is one of them. But the, the roles of those who are, there are all enumerated anyway. It's a rare thing. It's an exceedingly rare thing. However, is it, here's my question. 0:00:00 - 0:09:31 Is it possible for a person, a living person to stand in the presence of God? Well, we already talked about Moses Abraham did. There's actually um quite a list, but here's one from first kings. 17 1 Elijah said to Ahab as the Lord of Israel, Lord God of Israel liveth before whom I stand there shall not 0:09:31 - 0:09:56 be due nor reign these years. But according to my word now, uh if this is the only verse I had to stand on uh pun intended, would I bet my life that literally what Elijah was saying was that he stood in the presence of the Lord in the same meaning as Gabriel meant it, which Gabriel meant he was literally 0:09:55 - 0:10:20 stationed in the throne room, throne room of God. That was his place in everything. Did Elijah mean that uh for our purposes, it actually doesn't matter. In fact, it's better for our point if it didn't mean that literally, because what it means is that there's something more to God's presence than the 0:10:20 - 0:10:54 physical spot where he dwells or where he happens to be if we wanna go that route. So here I'll tell you the Lord's presence. It is a literal thing. It is, you can be with him literally just like if I was sitting next to my son. It can be like that because he's a literal being. He's real, he's real and 0:10:54 - 0:11:22 you can talk to him and he can talk to you and many interactions can occur between you that um they span the entire breadth of human interaction and includes far more. However, an element of the Lord's presence is the Lord's purpose. And this is something that uh you may not have thought about before 0:11:21 - 0:11:50 . Maybe, maybe you'll learn something new even if you have thought about it. So it's a big topic, but we're just gonna kind of talk about a little bit of it. You draw nearer to God's presence. Not only, not only is the Lord's presence coupled inseparably to his purpose, but his purpose is actually the 0:11:50 - 0:12:25 path to his presence. The Lord's purpose is the path to the Lord's presence. You draw near to his presence by learning and living more of his purpose. So we started on all this focused in on God's voice. So let's get it back to that. Um You hear the voice of the Lord more often and in greater volume 0:12:24 - 0:12:48 and in greater content. Remember the track example, we were talking about a, a place, but all of those things will happen through your learning and living more of his purpose. And actually, it's uh it opens a door to an even closer relationship than the one we diagrammed originally. And we'll get to 0:12:48 - 0:13:16 that. So here's a snippet from alma 3913 that talks about how we move closer. That ye turn to the Lord with all your might, excuse me, with all your mind might and strength that ye turn to the Lord with all your might might and strength. I really wanna say Mike first apparently, but in this one, it's 0:13:16 - 0:13:39 mind first. So how can we characterize this? Cause, you know, whenever we get into a phrase that we've heard a billion times, it's not so easy to think about what it actually means. Because as humans, we're very good at replacing detailed content with summarized categories. And that's really helpful 0:13:38 - 0:14:06 a lot of times, but not when you're trying to dig in and see how to change your life. This is um this could be a very extensive topic, but I, I wanna give you a little nugget here. This is the value of having a switch in your mind and in your time where you go over to what some people call limbic space 0:14:05 - 0:14:31 . And it's a distinction between everyday life where you live in the categorization of things, the summary, the rote repetition, the habits, you're not actively thinking about every little thing you do. You switch over to the atomic view where you're thinking in very high resolution about everything 0:14:30 - 0:14:52 that you perceive or anything that relates to whatever it is you're thinking about. And not only that, but you're actively challenging all of your assumptions and your categorizations and your summaries, you're actively testing those relationships. It turns out that's super duper important. It turns 0:14:51 - 0:15:13 out that that is very much tied into the idea of sacred spaces like temples and rituals, which is a real travesty because when those things become wrote and they, they become part of what is common, it's the opposite of what they're designed for. And no surprise, they don't work for what they're intended 0:15:13 - 0:15:39 . Anyway. Let's flip the limbic switch and let's um he here's one tool for doing that. Don't use the same words. Um It's like that old TLC song. Don't go chasing waterfalls. Um stick to the rivers and the lakes that you're used to. We wanna flip that around and we wanna go chase the waterfalls, which 0:15:39 - 0:16:03 is a really interesting analogy to have popped into my head since waterfalls are symbolic of light and truth flowing down from heaven, the living water anyway. And then, you know, it traverses out and fans out into um the landscape. So let's flip the switch and instead of saying, turn to the Lord with 0:16:02 - 0:16:22 all your mind might and strength and everyone lets out a collective groan, rolls their eyes, assumes they know exactly what that means and they're already doing it. We will say the following two pieces, repentance and time and effort. Now, repentance is gonna get the groans in the eye rolls too. However 0:16:21 - 0:16:46 , let's just say it for the sake of saying it, stop doing anything. He wouldn't do in your place, start doing whatever he would do in your place. It's that simple. It's not easy, but it's simple. And you have to do that in order to move closer to the Lord because you can't do that and turn to the Lord 0:16:46 - 0:17:07 with all your mind might and strength. If you're not making changes, you're not turning. If you're doing the same thing, you're walking in a straight line. It doesn't matter if you walk faster. This is like uh responding to something that doesn't work by doing the same thing you were doing even harder 0:17:06 - 0:17:28 . Now, some things obviously have a threshold of intensity before they work like uh winning an arm wrestling competition or something. But that's a simplistic way to look at it because even in those things, putting in extra effort requires some changes. So it's not exactly a straight line, right? So 0:17:28 - 0:17:47 you could say, well, if you lose an arm wrestling contest, you have to push harder next time and that's just doing the same thing again and doing it harder. No, not really. Because you're gonna have to change your training regimen. You have to change your mental uh perspective, your mental toughness 0:17:47 - 0:18:11 and so on. Maybe you need a more threatening facial expression, but there are changes that need to happen. So you can't turn without changing and you can't be doing so with all your mind might and strength when you leave things on the table. So anything you know of, that's not perfectly reconciled with 0:18:11 - 0:18:31 what the Lord would do in your place, you need to fix. You might say, well, what about all the stuff where I have no idea what he would do in my place and this I file under the long list of questions. I'm really shocked no one's ever asked me. Um, so for someone who's beginning their path to the Lord 0:18:31 - 0:18:50 , whether they've pretended to know Him for a long time or not, the actual path to him, they are going to find that when once you start doing this, your head is filled at first, of course with the things that are out of alignment. But secondarily after you address those things or as you do when you're 0:18:50 - 0:19:11 walking around all the time asking what would Jesus do in my place right now? You're gonna find out that the answer most of the time is I have no idea. This is great. It's actually not a problem. It's part of the solution because do you know someone that you don't know what they would do in your place 0:19:10 - 0:19:36 if you don't know what they do in your place? No, you don't. You don't know them very well. Thankfully, every day is a, a new opportunity to ask more questions to hit the scriptures and say, what can I learn from this giant book about what God would do at breakfast time? What God would do when um he's 0:19:35 - 0:19:59 sick of changing diapers and, and you know, if he sees one more diaper, he's gonna jump out the window or something or whatever, whatever the case may be, what would God do if he couldn't make rent this month? And I promise you as you take those questions to him and you do the thing we're about to say 0:19:58 - 0:20:17 next, you're gonna find your answers and you'll be able to build out that model of how God would do in your place. And it's not just new information. It's also going to revise your previous answers because they'll get more accurate. They'll get more specific, they'll get, uh they'll get better than they 0:20:17 - 0:20:37 were. And your model will get more and more accurate and have greater and greater coverage, think of coverage like like cell phone signal and you see those maps and there are these cursed areas where there's no cell phone service and you have to make a call four times because you sit on hold and then 0:20:37 - 0:20:58 they finally answer and they can't hear you. And it's um it's very annoying. You don't want your relationship with God to be like that. But first you need to make a map in order to know where to put up the new towers. And that's where you dig in and start asking and looking and listening and trying to 0:20:58 - 0:21:22 find, you know, in the scriptures and everywhere else. Just trying to do all you can to find out what the answer is, and he's going to teach you so much through that because when you build a tower, you don't just get one phone call, you get the ability to make any number of phone calls in that spot for 0:21:21 - 0:21:40 the whole range of the tower. And not only that, but any person who goes there is going to have that tower to use as long as they're on the right network. This is a beautiful analogy. I need to remember this one. This is brand new. I didn't have this five minutes ago. OK. Time and effort. Um is the other 0:21:40 - 0:22:04 chunk. The the one chunk is repentance. The other chunk is time and effort. Time is uh uh it's always flying and this morning is no exception. I can't believe what time it is now compared to when I woke up. And uh I've been through a lot of miles this morning, but uh this is going to burn out the rest 0:22:04 - 0:22:26 of my morning time. And that's very unfortunate because I had a lot of things I was hoping to get to today this morning. OK. Um Time and effort. More time, greater effort. Pretty simple. I think that that's self explanatory, but more time, greater effort will move on. So if you want to turn to the Lord 0:22:26 - 0:22:51 repent more time, greater effort. All right, continuing with this theme of how do we move closer? Isaiah 2913, we read wherefore the Lord said for as much as this people draw near me with their mouth and with their lips do honor me but have removed their heart far from me and their fear toward me is 0:22:51 - 0:23:16 taught by the precept of men. There's so much more packed into this verse than I've ever heard anybody talk about. But unfortunately, we can't go there right now. There's no time. So as we look at this and we overlay it on our lives and we see what matches and what doesn't when we talk about drawing 0:23:15 - 0:23:45 near to God with your mouth. It's not just in what you say to or about Him, drawing near to God is not just about what you say to or about Him. This is one reason why I'm not a huge fan of the, the scripture. Uh Nephi, Nephi phrase, we talk of Christ, we rejoice of Christ, et cetera, et cetera. Um Talking 0:23:44 - 0:24:09 about Jesus is great, but a whole lot of people do it. They manage to do it in a way where they never ever learn more about Him or become more like him. And that is that kind of talking about Jesus is an affront to God. It's extremely offensive to him. It's not that He wants you to speak less about him 0:24:09 - 0:24:40 . He just wants you to do more than you're doing to align with that. And also to not rattle off words and phrases or even scriptures as if your citation of them implies your living of them. They're not the same thing or even your understanding of them, you know, scripture passages, the scriptures as 0:24:40 - 0:25:10 a body themselves. The word of God in general, the superset of all it is not a fixed set. It just keeps growing. The more you look at it, the more you think about it and the more effort you put into living it, the more he will teach you. It's amazing. It's a well that does not end and that's beautiful 0:25:09 - 0:25:38 . So it's not just about what you say to or about Him. So you could say, but I pray every day and I just, I want to hear the Lord's voice more often. I wish he was teaching me more. OK? Well, let's look at the rest of the story. What do you desire and why, what do you do? What don't you do and why, how 0:25:38 - 0:26:12 do you feel? How don't you feel and why drawing near to God cannot be done in one dimension, for example, not very far. At least if you want to adopt more of the long suffering of Jesus, you can study that topic until doomsday and you will only advance up to the limits of all the other properties of 0:26:12 - 0:26:37 God that you currently possess. Because everything from God is inseparably coupled. That's part of the challenge and it's the source of the benefit. It's, it all comes together and it all goes together. It all ebbs together and it all flows together. And if you try to slice it too thinly, you're not 0:26:37 - 0:27:06 gonna get very much even of the thing you're trying to slice. So you have to think about what you desire and why, and what you do and why. So desire. That's a huge ball of wax. So I'll just give you that chunk to think about what you do. I specifically want to call out this idea of fear of the Lord because 0:27:06 - 0:27:27 it's in the verse we quoted from Isaiah 2913. Their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men. Fear of the Lord means how fully you reconcile your life to what you believe he would do in your place. And hopefully this connects your mind right back to our little discussion a minute ago about repentance 0:27:26 - 0:27:58 . If you truly fear God, you are not going to mess around every single day, you're going to be thinking man, what can I tweak here? What can I learn or especially what do I already know that I'm not living up to? So all these people who uh who claim to be Christians and they make their worship, the celebration 0:27:57 - 0:28:28 of their continued sin. They do not fear the Lord. Now in saying that I'm going to tell you, I don't either. I don't fear God at all. But it's because I've graduating, graduated to loving him. I can't fear him because I know He is love, right? But I also know how that love works and I know the rest of 0:28:28 - 0:28:52 the attributes and I understand those too. And so when I say I don't fear the Lord, I'm not saying I don't do everything I believe he'd do in my place and I don't abstain from everything I think he wouldn't do in my place for me. Those are the same because you can't love him and you can't know about 0:28:52 - 0:29:19 his love for you. If you don't also obey him, and you can start by doing this in fear because you're afraid of what's going to happen to you if you don't. And that's perfectly reasonable, it's absolutely reasonable to do that. However, if you walk down that road, even just a few steps, you're going to 0:29:19 - 0:29:50 start to catch on to a much greater understanding, which is that he never actually punishes anybody. All of his instructions are to maximize our joy. They're not to minimize our punishment or even our suffering because there's quite a bit of tremendous suffering in his path. However, there's even greater 0:29:49 - 0:30:15 meaning and even greater joy. So as you get to know him, you come to learn to a fuller and fuller extent that his commandments, they're not arbitrary. He really knows what he's talking about. He knows the whole entire path from start to finish. He knows exactly where we stand, he knows exactly where 0:30:15 - 0:30:44 he stands. He knows the path from A to B and so he orients us in that path and he gives us line upon line and it's precise and it's in full love. But these folks I referred to earlier who celebrate their continuing sin as if that's the glory of God to somehow make a way for people to just keep being 0:30:43 - 0:31:11 as um corrupted as they were before. That's probably the nicest word I can use is that's insane to me, that's not the fear of the Lord. And it's certainly not the love of the Lord because if you really loved God, you do everything you could to be like him for many, many reasons. That's exactly what you 0:31:11 - 0:31:42 do. And uh John says as much in his letters because he knew what he was talking about. So this, I I said desire is a big ball of wax. Here's a little more, this is, this is important. I'm just gonna read the bullets cause if I go off script here, I'm gonna spend three hours telling you things that you're 0:31:42 - 0:32:16 not really ready to hear your existing desires will draw you toward God, drawing toward God will change your existing desires. And if you resist the latter, you will limit the former. We'll leave it at that. Um Let, let, let's, let's explore this in a structured way. OK? And I'll, I'll tell you up front 0:32:15 - 0:32:42 , the point of this is to illustrate that as you draw closer to God under the impression of what that's going to be like and desiring that whatever your impression is, you're going to find out that the reality is very different than that. And in that reality is a whole bunch of stuff that you didn't 0:32:41 - 0:33:11 anticipate a lot of which you will not want. So let's go through some examples. Um And, and we're trying to contextualize this whole conversation on God's voice. So if you really want more of it, you have to be prepared for the fact that it's going to contain things other than what you want in addition 0:33:11 - 0:33:35 to what you want. So here's an example, if you reread Exodus 19 and 20 which we don't have time to do here. What you're gonna see is the Israelites are taken to Mount Sinai. They're led there by Moses under the instructions of God and they're all excited about it. But once they get there and once they 0:33:35 - 0:34:01 actually start interacting with the mountain, they find out that as God draws nearer. Yes, they end up hearing his voice. But along with that came some horrific experiences that they weren't expecting fire. There was an earthquake, there were these billowing clouds of smoke and then there was this really 0:34:00 - 0:34:23 loud noise that just kept getting louder and just kept going. And I don't know what the loudest noise you've ever heard was or if it was sustained, I think the loudest noise I've heard with my natural ears was this crazy thunderstorm. Once it was so loud, I felt like the thunder was right in my head 0:34:23 - 0:34:45 and it was real, it wasn't a vision, it was happening outside. Um, and at the time I was scared, it's probably the last time I was ever scared that I can remember, but it was a little scary. It was really loud and I, I guess it never had occurred to me. I mean, I had experienced some really loud things 0:34:44 - 0:35:12 that anything could be that loud. It turns out. Um, so I saw something not too long ago. I don't wanna get too much off topic here. I'm gonna try to keep this reined in that in the, the, one of the recorded eruptions of Krakatoa. Uh, the sound was so loud that if you were within a certain very large 0:35:12 - 0:35:31 radius, I don't remember if it's 100 and 60 miles or what that scientists have calculated that you would have lost your hearing for life. And then there was another radius where you'd blow your eardrums and it was, it was loud enough that it was heard 3000 miles away and it was loud enough that they 0:35:31 - 0:35:57 could measure the, the return of the airwaves every 37 hours or however long it took to orbit around the earth for several days after that, if I'm not mistaken. And, um, they'll tell you that that's the loudest noise that's ever been recorded. Um, in, in human history. Um, that, that might be true because 0:35:57 - 0:36:26 the human history part sort of, I guess the scriptures are history, but my point is it gets louder than that anyway. And um some people will, will be witnesses of that. So in the Moses example, we have this up, down, up, down, um which calls back to these ears, right? That's, it's an example of that 0:36:26 - 0:36:50 . And we also have an example of the fact that what they wanted, it was, it was coupled to what they did not want. And we have an example of why it was not arbitrary, it's not arbitrary. There is a reason and actually the, the reason I could say it much more valuably than I'm saying it here. But that'll 0:36:50 - 0:37:09 get us off topic. So we'll just keep it at this level. They were attached to one another because they were both in God. And if you want to hear God's voice, you have to go to the mountain. And if you go to the mountain under the conditions that the Israelites did, that's your little hint to what I'd 0:37:09 - 0:37:34 like to say right now, I'm not going to, you're going to get fire and an earthquake and clouds of smoke and you're gonna get this crazy loud noise that just keeps getting louder. And if you reread that, those two chapters, you'll see, Moses tells them exactly why that is. They'll leave it to you. OK 0:37:34 - 0:37:58 ? So here's an yet another angle talking about how to move closer. Here's the tip. Listen when he speaks to you, not just when you speak to him, hopefully, right off the bat, you see the connection to what we were just talking about with Moses and the Israelites coming to the mountain. Don't so let allow 0:37:57 - 0:38:20 , allow your desire that you have right now to draw you to him. But as you get there, don't allow your original desire to dictate the limits of what you receive from him because you won't get your original desire. I promise you because your original desire doesn't actually exist without the other stuff 0:38:20 - 0:38:42 he's sending. They always cour they can't be separated. The details of what that other part is. Those details change, but they're like two sides of the same stick. And if you pick up the one, you have to pick up the other, you can't break them in half. Well, you can, but not before you get the stick 0:38:42 - 0:39:08 , you have to take both ends and there's a process for breaking them apart and it's actually really important, but that comes later. OK? So here's from Proverbs one and somebody's gonna tell me. Yeah, but this is about wisdom, not God. Uh OK. But it's also all true about God because wisdom like all good 0:39:08 - 0:00:00 things comes from and is fulfilled in God. God leads us to wisdom and wisdom leads us to God. And you could repeat that same phrase for, for many, many things, not just wisdom, you could say truth, you could say reason, you could say beauty, you could say good, you could say utility could say value. 0:00:00 - 0:40:06 There's many things, in fact, anything good can fit into that pattern. And this is a massive, massive key because today there is no literal Mount Sinai. I mean, there is a literal mountain somewhere probably in a place that's illegal to go to. That was Mount Sinai back in the day. Um But there is a uh 0:40:06 - 0:40:36 uh the physical Mount Sinai could come and go. Moses isn't here. Last time I checked. Um Not right now, at least and not doing his Moses thing at least. But the figurative Mount Sinai, the actual mountain of the Lord always exists. It's existed since the dawn of creation and it will continue to exist 0:40:35 - 0:41:03 as long as this earth stands and that's critical, that's critical. So how do you go there? How do you find it? And how do you climb it? I just told you because everything good leads to everything good. And no matter what words you, you fit into this pattern of all blank things are from God and, and fulfilled 0:41:02 - 0:41:28 in God. No matter what you put into the blank, it will take you higher, but you have to start where you are and that's where repentance comes in. And that's why now now repentance is just improvement. And so everything I'm saying is repentance, but the initial reconciliation to what you already know 0:41:27 - 0:41:54 that gets you to the base of the mountain and you can't get there any other way. You stay in Egypt or you die along the way, any other way. Once you get to the mountain, that's how you go up is you lay, hold on every good thing to put it in a scriptural phrase. There are other things I could say, but 0:41:54 - 0:42:21 it's a big topic. So, Proverbs one, um I'm running short on time. You can read this. It's, it's the, the point I wanted to make is that um you can't have one without the other. If you want God to speak to you, you have to listen when he does, you can't just turn on your ears once you've asked a question 0:42:20 - 0:42:43 or turn off your ears as he's answering you. And in addition to the specific thing you asked, he gives you what you should have asked the answer to what you should have asked. That's way more important. And this pattern, it stretches through everything and its people don't understand when Jesus was saying 0:42:42 - 0:43:09 what father is there that if you ask him for bread, he'll give you a stone and so on. It's hilarious to read because Je Jesus is a genius. First off, let's just say, recognize that. But the people who read this and say, oh yeah. Yeah, because he loves us. He's just gonna give us bread. No, he's gonna 0:43:09 - 0:43:29 give you the rock cause a rock beats the bread. It's worth more. And you can go through that whole thing. And the, the, the pet, the whole sermon is like that. There's, there's, there's several statements he makes and they're all like that. The more valuable thing is the second thing. It's way more valuable 0:43:28 - 0:43:49 . How do we know, what did he say in John? When the people came for the loaves and fishes? He said, yeah, you know, bread and fish. It's great. But I'm the bread of life and I'm what you should actually want. And you eat me by living as I would live in your place. You eat my flesh and you drink my blood 0:43:49 - 0:44:09 as living as I would live in your place by living as I would live in your place. And they all lost their minds. And commentators are like, oh because he was suggesting cannibalism and that was repulsive to Jews. Uh no, they knew exactly what he meant. And they said, well, we just want the free bread 0:44:09 - 0:44:36 like Moses had like Manna. That's where we, we would like that because then we don't have to work. We just get free bread. And Jesus said, yeah, that's great. But what I am is more than that and you should live like me because that's the only way that you can receive who I am and abide with me. And they 0:44:36 - 0:45:01 didn't like that very much. So anyway, um but you can read that you have to accept the things they asked for loaves and fishes, he fed them. But he also said I have something better than this. And they said, well, you can keep that. We'll take the loaves and fishes. But you just, you just keep that we're 0:45:01 - 0:45:27 good. If you think this is a rare thing or that only really wicked people do this, you need to stop, take a pause, go to a quiet place and review your life because I promise you, you do this all the time. I can't tell you how many people, for instance, this is just one example. They'll come to me with 0:45:27 - 0:45:51 a question about something and I, if I know the answer, I'll tell them or if, if I ask and God tells me the answer, I will tell them. And typically that will also come with something else and they don't want the something else implicitly. There's always a something else even if there's no content that 0:45:51 - 0:46:15 suggests that there's always, what else could you tell me that I should hear or what should I be asking you about? One person actually asked me that, but I think it was on a job interview. Yeah. So it's funny, Jesus said uh the Children. Uh so I'm sorry, I'm paraphrasing. But the Children of this world 0:46:14 - 0:46:39 are in many cases wiser than the Children of light that was coupled to the, the parable of the unjust steward. And um he also criticized the Pharisees for saying, you know, you are smart enough to to know that when there's a red sky, there's gonna be bad weather, but you're not smart enough to see signs 0:46:38 - 0:47:03 that are more obvious than that. You selectively use your wisdom and that's why you're so far behind in so many ways, even though it's evident before you, you're clueless. And so a lot more people are wise enough to say in a job interview, what should I be asking right now that I'm not asking then um 0:47:03 - 0:47:27 than they would in a religious context. But I told you everything from God ebbs and flows together. And if someone possesses the question, the answer to the question that you cannot answer, it probably means not always but and it's, it's commensurate with the value of the question for a really, really 0:47:26 - 0:47:52 valuable answer. A really hard question. If they have the answer to that, they probably know a butt load of other things. And those other things are very likely to be much more valuable than that because you're approaching that from the limits of your understanding and your desire. And remember all things 0:47:52 - 0:48:28 come from God at the same time to comparable levels. And so their desires are probably higher in terms of orientation and intensity than yours. And their knowledge is probably greater than yours and et cetera, you can put a dot dot dot After that, OK. Enough of a very valuable side note um OK, here's 0:48:28 - 0:48:48 another modification of our diagram because as you move closer. What happens? Did I spill the beans on this yet presence, presence. There we go. What happens is I just want to make sure I already told you that presence and purpose is coupled are coupled. What happens is as you draw closer to his presence 0:48:47 - 0:49:10 , you it's like a gradient but you get to the point where it becomes obvious that drawing closer to him actually, you cannot really, you can't really get very far, just moving closer to him. This is like we talk of Christ, we rejoice in Christ, et cetera. Yeah. OK. But do you live like him? Do you desire 0:49:09 - 0:49:37 like him? Do you do the same things for the same reasons? Do you feel like God feels cause you, you can talk about Him and not do any of those things? But you can't do any of those things without talking about him. You see it's like that uh preach the gospel use words, if necessary idea, now you're gonna 0:49:37 - 0:50:03 use words. So I don't actually like that phrase very much. But if, if your gospel ministry is limited to using gospel words in gospel places or even just one of those, you're not a very good minister because Jesus was Jesus at all times, in all places, you have to know what kind of a father was Jesus 0:50:02 - 0:50:30 or would he be if you want to avoid controversy? What kind of a father would Jesus be? What kind of a husband would he be. What kind of carpenter was he? Was he a carpenter at all? What kind of son was Jesus? That one safe. What kind of friend was Jesus. And so you have to figure out these things, you 0:50:30 - 0:50:54 have to figure out what Jesus thought about food. What was his relationship with food? How did Jesus feel about exercise and these are uncomfortable areas that, you know, pastors would get fired for talking about these things, which is one reason you won't find what you're looking for in your standard 0:50:54 - 0:51:18 church because it's antithetical to the setup. Um All right. So sooner or later you're gonna get the bright idea that if you really wanna draw closer to God and he's running this track, you have to run the track too, right? I didn't draw the pictures because it actually takes quite a bit of time to draw 0:51:18 - 0:51:35 these, which I apologize for because I know they're crude. But I didn't, I didn't even attempt the following. So I'm just gonna use my mouse in, in your imagination. So bear with me. So imagine, have you ever seen a video of the solar system? And then some planets are flying around faster than others 0:51:34 - 0:51:59 because they have different orbits, uh orbital speeds and orbits. Yeah. Anyway, different periods. So imagine God's flying around this circle really fast because you know He's God and you start running and you're, you know, like fat camp guy and you're barely even trotting I mean, it's one of those trots 0:51:59 - 0:52:18 where we all know you're walking but you're just putting on a show and good for you. That's the first step. Right. And we, I've been there so I'm making fun of my past self, not just others. And, um, and what's gonna have it here? I can actually pick this up. He's got to be flying around here and it's 0:52:17 - 0:52:39 almost gonna be like you're standing still but you're, you're moving a little bit like this, right with your little trot, fake run. And um the thing is, is at first it's gonna seem like way more work for not much different result because when you're just standing still, you're not out of breath at least 0:52:38 - 0:52:55 . And you just, you can patiently wait for him to come around and then you kind of shout something to each other and then that's it. Now he's talking the whole time. It's just, you have no idea. It's, it's like my cell phone conversations being in a cellphone dead zone where I call my mom and we have 0:52:55 - 0:53:13 an hour conversation and about a quarter of that consists of 32nd periods where I have no idea what she's saying because the phone goes quiet and then it comes back in and she's still talking and I just kind of try to pick up from context clues what's going on. But uh she's not watching this but mom 0:53:13 - 0:53:33 , I love you, but she's getting to the age where most of the stuff she says is repeated anyway. So, like I can put it together, but you don't want that to be your relationship with God, where he's just saying the same thing over and over again, right? You want to know what you don't know. So, uh, here's 0:53:32 - 0:53:49 , here's what you do and if you've ever run on a track with, with people, I'm not sure, like, maybe be running on a track with horses or something. But if it's a bunch of people on a track, you're doing a five K or whatever, you know, there's people everywhere and you, you can look ahead at someone and 0:53:48 - 0:54:10 say, man, that person's going at a good clip. I'm gonna pace myself off of them. So, so now we're gonna go into the, the extra innings here, but you're, you're gonna be really slow at first. The guys are gonna be flying. If you just keep running faster, you're gonna run faster. It's funny how that works 0:54:09 - 0:54:34 . But as you, um, as, as this modulates, so that your period is more in line with God's and your pace is, is more matched and your distance is closing. You know, you're gonna get to the point where, and this is gonna sound blasphemous. Just bear with me where he doesn't lap you anymore and then you close 0:54:33 - 0:55:00 the distance and so like, maybe I'm gonna flip this around, sorry, this is maybe like you can stay a little ahead of Him. But you're still like, oh my gosh, and then you pick it up, right? And eventually you guys are both again, forgive the lack of animation in this like you're keeping pace on Him. So 0:54:59 - 0:00:00 God says, draw near unto me and I will draw near unto you. He's not gonna slow down for people that are standing, but don't underestimate how willing God is to stoop down to you cause he is. And I've seen it in my life. I've literally seen Jesus stoop down because I was kneeling and he stooped down, 0:00:00 - 0:56:00 but don't expect him to meet you where you are when you're just how you've always been, you have to make use of what he's already given you and start jogging even to start walking on the track. If you're putting one leg in front of the other, that's where you start. If that's the best you can do or the 0:56:00 - 0:56:32 most you're willing to do just do it because every step you take, you will have more reasons to take the next because that's the way God works. It all just keeps pouring out. Uh I started to illustrate this before but you know God's the fastest one there is and the truth is you're never actually going 0:56:32 - 0:56:58 to catch him spoiler because by the time you get to where you think he is, he's ahead of that. But this can happen. You know the pace cars and racing. I don't actually know anything about race cars, but I saw days of thunder at some point. Um, it's been a long time. I, when I saw it, Nicole Kidman still 0:56:58 - 0:00:00 had an accent. So that tells you it's been a long time getting in the car. Cole so you could have a Pacer and, and this happened. So I remember in the army I, I think I've shared with you. I, I have asthma and I had a lot of issues. I didn't know I had asthma. I just thought I was a fat kid and, um, 0:00:00 - 0:57:39 I would do this. So I would zero in because the, you know, they, they, they start the, the run and it's timed and you're being graded, you only have so much time or you fail and then you get points for doing it and they blow the whistle or whatever we'd start and, um, everybody would take off and leave 0:57:39 - 0:58:01 me at the starting line because I was just doing my little shuffle thing trying to getting gear. But what I would do is I'd, I'd fix my glance on someone who was running faster than I was, you know, not the person who is gone, but the person who I saw who was running faster than I was. And my whole goal 0:58:01 - 0:58:24 , the only thing I cared about was catching up to that person. And then once I did, I'd pick someone else and then I'd pick someone else and that's the way I went and by doing this enough times I became a fast runner and then there was this really funny time where I was running a five K with a girl I 0:58:24 - 0:58:45 was dating and, um, uh, she was getting irritated because she was running so slow. I, you know, I grew up poor. This is the first, I would never go to a paid race. I only went because it was a date and I wanted to support her because she had tied this to this goal that she was gonna get good at running 0:58:44 - 0:59:04 or at least get into running a little and get into shape and, uh, better shape. And, uh, she wanted to know if I'd go with her, support her. I said, yeah, absolutely. So we show up and I thought, you know, we get a free T shirt. So I guess that's worth the exorbitant amount of money. But for me running 0:59:03 - 0:59:21 was work because I was in the army and I like, it wasn't something you do for fun. And, um, I show up and there's just tables of food and I said, what is all this? And she's like, oh, yeah, well, you know, it's part of, you pay the money, you get this breakfast and orange juice and fancy bagels. It's 0:59:21 - 0:59:41 like fancy bagels. And I said, are you gonna have any of this? She's like, I can't, we're gonna run and I don't wanna puke. I said, well, I'm not, I'm, I'm not passing this up. And I, like I had pockets, I had pockets full of bagels. So, uh, we're running and she's like, she's just pushing it for her 0:59:41 - 1:00:01 pace. And meanwhile I'm just like keeping up, almost walking and eating bagels while I'm running. Cause you know, and, uh, uh, I wasn't, I wasn't gonna waste of bagels. So she gets frustrated and she's like, well, you just go ahead. She's getting ticked off cause she's, she was like dying and I'm eating 1:00:01 - 0:00:00 bagels. I said, OK, and then I was like, ok, time to put the bagels away and, and let's see how fast I can really do this because I'd never done a five K before. And, uh, the army runs two miles. That's just what I did. And, uh, so I start, I start trucking and, uh, I did my thing back to the point. 0:00:00 - 1:00:43 I, I found my pacers and I would catch up to them and I was feeling pretty good until these moms pushing strollers started passing me and there's like five of them and some of them had little kids running beside them. And so it was wonderful. And this is also a lesson that, that, on a serious note, I'm 1:00:43 - 1:01:09 going to talk about this more, not with the racing. But, you know, if somebody passes you while you're on this track, it's always a good thing for you. It's always a good thing for you. So it either gives you a target, uh, a way point that you can aim for or it puts you in your place. And that's, that 1:01:09 - 1:01:30 was the case for the bagel eating Rob Smith that day. I was like, oh, yeah, hotshot. You think you can eat your bagels and now four year olds outrunning you or this lady who's pushing a stroller with another human being in it. So, you know, it's, it's good to feel like a chump sometimes. Um Anyway, we 1:01:30 - 1:01:52 have three more slides. OK? So we, we said you draw closer to him. The whole point of this presentation is hearing his voice, right? But um God's voice is found in his purpose. So, what is his purpose? And I just wanna tell you this is a textbook case of me putting a couple things on a slide that we 1:01:52 - 1:02:15 could spend three years talking about and I'm not exaggerating in any way that's actually a vast underestimate. Um But it's his character. What do we mean by that? Because I know when I say character, people don't think the things that I think yet, I mean, love mercy, justice, long suffering, courage 1:02:14 - 1:02:39 , wisdom, knowledge. And there's more, but these are some of the big ones. Love is absolutely the most important one. Uh Justice though, I put a third in this list, but justice is actually really important as well. Love trumps it. But justice comes in very close and there are reasons for that that I'll 1:02:38 - 1:03:05 get into it another time. But you can and should work on all these things and everything else besides if, if um it has something to do with Jesus, it's worth your time to figure out and do and live according to. But I, I just want to end this presentation focusing on justice. Why? When I say these words 1:03:05 - 1:03:25 , you're going to think things that are a very, very tiny sliver of the real deal. And actually, it's gonna be like a Venn diagram that barely overlaps. And one side is your understanding of this and the other is God's and all these other things, they require a whole lot to get into more than you are 1:03:25 - 1:03:49 . But justice is, is different than these in a way in my, in my view because it's something that you can start to work on today and you actually don't have to learn anything new to do. So because I guarantee you there's a whole pile of this that you could implement that you're not doing right now, but 1:03:48 - 1:04:12 that you already understand. So I'm gonna read down this list and then we'll have one more side first, treat all people as they deserve. Some of the some of these are gonna be more surprising than others treat all people as they deserve, right? Maybe you're gonna come back at me and say, don't you mean 1:04:12 - 1:04:39 as you'd have them treat you? Because isn't that what Jesus taught? Yeah, that is absolutely a better way to be. It is and an even better way than that is to love them as God would. But these are three different levels of the same law. And if you're not doing the first one, I guarantee you, you are not 1:04:39 - 1:05:01 ready for the others, you can pretend like you're gonna jump ahead and jump right into those. But in doing so, you're just gonna, um, disobey everything, including that one. You won't do it right. It, it'll be a a smokescreen to just continue being a lot less than you should then you know, to be that 1:05:01 - 1:05:24 you could be today. So focus on treating all people as they deserve. Now, when I say that, I don't mean go out there and be the revenging angel or something, that's not what I'm saying. You should forgive all people, but what I'm saying is you need to pay attention to merit and you need to start acting 1:05:24 - 1:05:49 according to it. First and foremost, with yourself, don't desire what you don't deserve, don't retain what you don't deserve. So when I said, treat all people as they deserve, you thought that's a low law, right? But I just gave you two components of it that I can almost guarantee you don't live. I I'm 1:05:48 - 1:06:11 pretty sure you don't treat yourself as you deserve and I'm pretty sure you retain things that you do not deserve good things. So I could go a lot further into that I'm not going to um let's just keep going down the line. Maybe it'll flavor this some more minister to the victims of injustice. This is 1:06:11 - 1:06:32 a big one. You know, I was gonna make a separate video about it. Um There are, there are these boycotts now of Bud Light and now Target and who knows what else? On the one hand, I think that's great. Put some fear into these people. Um make them think twice before they offend the majority of their customer 1:06:31 - 1:06:58 base or at least a critical mass of their customer base. Um But here's the thing I don't like about this. If that person was not making purchasing choices, I should say, filtering their purchasing choices against their belief structure and the belief structure of that company, then why start now and 1:06:58 - 1:07:22 why be limited to just the, the popular things that everyone else is doing. Now, what I think is a great answer to this is strategically. Um Maybe you can't change your behavior across the board with all companies because you'd have to be Amish, which in my opinion actually wouldn't be so bad. Um If 1:07:22 - 1:07:51 only there were a non-religious Amish community, but it wouldn't work. That's funny how that works. Um Anyway, so, um so you say well by targeting two brands pun intended, um we can send the message without unnecessarily disrupting our lives. OK. I hear you. That's actually pretty good. But what's the 1:07:51 - 1:08:12 principle that you're living and, and most people, by the way, they're not gonna say that they're just gonna rage and rant against what Bud Light did or what target did. And it makes me sick. Yeah. Well, open your eyes, buddy. Every major company in this country or close to it is just as bad. It's just 1:08:12 - 1:08:33 , they didn't shove it in your face as badly, but you can guarantee they have the same people on the boards, the same ideologies of those people. So where's the outrage when things like this happened in the past? Uh broad brushing? There's a whole lot of breadth to this. I'll put the vaccine decisions 1:08:33 - 1:09:00 in this. Um So anyway, the principles are important and stirring up people on an emotional level just to get what you think is important right now, achieved that is really dangerous. You have to set people up on a foundation of principle and teach them to live according to those principles at all times 1:09:00 - 1:09:17 . And in all places, you don't just send them out like attack dogs, you know, hit them with a stick and then point them in the right direction. Take the chain off because they're going to turn and get you to or they're gonna turn and destroy good things in society because that's what mobs do. They're 1:09:17 - 1:09:45 not controllable, they're not based on reason based in emotion. So as they rage and foment, they're going to take out righteous people. Mobs do that and the question is what do you do about that? Because if you want to live according to justice, you need to settle the score of injustice. And again, I'm 1:09:45 - 1:10:10 not saying like mount up and be the punisher. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying by nursing the wounds of those that the mob attacked by making it right. There's a lot to this topic, but this is not something that we do as a people. Christians do not do this. They sit comfortably in their house and 1:10:09 - 1:10:38 they pray for people and this is insulting to God, keep the prayers, but add to it, doing all you can to answer them yourself. Moving on, do what you believe, like match up, believe what you do, match up your actions and your beliefs. You know, something doesn't match, change the change something, whether 1:10:37 - 1:10:56 you're changing your beliefs or your actions, make sure they line up. It's really important. It's so important that I can't tell you how important it is right now. This will be another topic some other day. What does that have to do with justice? Everything because your beliefs are mapping of cause and 1:10:56 - 1:11:16 effect. They're the, the how you understand the laws of reality to be. And so if you want God to treat you as you deserve and you want other people to treat you as you deserve, you better know what the laws of cause and effect are because they are what defines merit. They are what defines what you deserve 1:11:15 - 1:11:49 . By the way, if you find someone that says all I want is what I deserve. That is a very Christian idea. And um in spite of the fact that most Christians heads will spin when, when I say that professed Christians, why? Um because that's what heaven is. Heaven is a place where people a do not expect or 1:11:49 - 1:12:17 desire more than they deserve. And there are words for that things like envy and entitlement. Those are not Christian principles and b they, they receive what they deserve. And God's judgment is only negative. It's only punitive for the wicked. It's actually the vehicle of restoration for the righteous 1:12:17 - 1:12:44 , very important to understand that more later on that. So you better know the laws of cause and effect and then you should declare and seek what is good, true, beautiful, et cetera and declare and eschew what is evil, false, ugly, et cetera. Ugly's on the list. Folks, boyfriend jeans are ugly. I'm just 1:12:43 - 1:13:09 gonna say it. You might think eighties mustaches on men are ugly. Fair enough. Um But there's a whole lot of things that are taboo in, in these two topics, things that you absolutely wouldn't do because it's considered impolite or unkind or just socially in unacceptable. You're afraid you're gonna get 1:13:09 - 1:13:34 canceled if you do it, do it anyway because it's part of justice. You have to say things and live things as they really are. A lot more could be said about justice, but we're keeping it tight. All right now, end with this passage from Isaiah 58. Um And this one from Isaiah 59 so Isaiah 59 4, none call 1:13:34 - 1:13:58 for justice nor any Pleeth for truth. They trust in vanity and speak lies, they conceive mischief and bring forth iniquity. I should have put this on the last slide. That's what the last slide was all about. So I won't waste more time on this. But these words have meaning they're important. OK? But you 1:13:58 - 1:14:22 can study that out yourself. And then this Isaiah 58 9 and 10. Now we're switching over to the Isaiah Institute translation. I was just write Gigliotti cause it's shorter and he did it. Um Then should you call Jehovah will respond? Should you cry? He will say I am here. Indeed. If you will banish servitude 1:14:22 - 1:14:43 from among you and the pointing finger and defensive speech, if you will give of your own to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then shall your light dawn amid darkness in your twilight become as the noonday. Again, this ties the previous slide to the slide show itself, which is if you 1:14:43 - 1:15:01 want to hear the voice of the Lord, it's found in his purpose. And here you go. This is how justice will help you get there. All right. So study that out and figure out how that applies to your life. Although I literally just told you. So I hope this is helpful. Um take care.