What's Your Until？ — Gary Wilkerson

It's not over. I have four children, and they've been in many places where I'm preaching, and after I've been preaching for about an hour and a half, all my kids turn to each other and go, it's not over.

I don't think that's what that song meant, but so don't worry about it, I will not be going an hour and a half today. Let's pray first, and then I'm gonna talk to you about, really I'm gonna ask you a question.

The Question of Our Ultimate “Until”

What is your until? What is that thing that you're looking forward, you just can't wait until, fill in the blank. Jesus, we thank you that you're going to speak to us. We thank you, Jesus, that you're gonna do something that's refreshing in us, a delightful, inspiring life, turning in a direction that honors you and blesses us.

I thank you that you allow me to preach these words with power and authority and love, in Jesus' name. Everybody say it together, amen. Amen. Turn to Psalm chapter 132, if you would, Psalm 132. When I was 15 years old, my father asked what I wanted for Christmas the next year, when I turned 16.

And I said, whatever you want to get me, Dad. He goes, well, I'd really like to get you a car. And I thought, hey, we were living in Texas at the time, you'd get your driver's license at 16. And so, you know what Christmas is like, when you're waiting for that.

But I had a little bit of surprise. I was 15 years old, and at Christmas Eve, it's when we opened up our presents. All my brothers and sisters had all these big boxes, and my brother had a bicycle, and I had one little box.

And I'm thinking, man, it's like, what is this? And so everybody's opened their presents. My dad and mom said, open yours last, Gary, after that. And I opened the box, and there was a key in there, and it had a little Mazda symbol on it.

He had bought me a Mazda for Christmas. And I was, and it was like, the problem was, though, he said, happy, Merry Christmas. You're 16 now, you can drive. And I said, Dad, I'm only 15. He got the, he thought I had turned 16, and I had not.

So I was only 15, and I had to wait a whole year until I could drive that car. Isn't it hard to wait for your until? And so I wanna talk to you tonight about the most important until that you could possibly have in your life.

You can have, number one, a wrong until, waiting for something that is unhealthy for you, ungodly, sinful. Or you can have an until that is of God, and a good thing, and something you should pursue and should desire, but it's not your greatest one thing, until.

And then thirdly, we're gonna talk about the divine until, the until that God most desperately, deeply desires for you and for us. Let's dig into Psalm 132. It's not written by David, because it's actually a call to pray for David, to help David along his way, and it starts off by saying, remember, O Lord, in David's favor.

So think of David, whoever's writing this. Some say it was Solomon. Solomon, David had hired 8 ,000 singers, and worshipers, and songwriters, and psalmist to work full-time day and night in the temple.

When we sing that song, day and night, night and day, let incense arise, that was something 8 ,000 workers of the temple did, David's tabernacle did day and night, literally burning incense, and praising, and worshiping God.

That's why David said, I'd rather be a doorkeeper in the house of the Lord than anything else that I could possibly be doing, running a nation, leading an army, defeating my enemies, slaying giants. More than anything else, I would love to be in that temple with those 8 ,000, worshiping the Lord day and night.

That was his great desire, and so whoever it was that wrote this says, remember, O Lord, in David's favor. All the hardships he endured, all the difficulties that he experienced, all the trials that he went through, all the suffering that he endured.

So the psalmist writer here is saying, remember David, because he's had a hard life. Anybody in this room had a bit of a hard life? Anybody here might say, there's some hardships I've had to endure, there's some suffering I've gone through, there's some people in this room, like David, that had, David had marriage problems, difficulty with one of his wives.

Hopefully I won't have to say that about any of you, one of his wives, I hope that's just for David in the Old Testament, but he had trouble with a wife, he had trouble with a son, his son rebelled against him, and overthrew the nation, he had physical sicknesses, some of his psalms he writes, my body is wasting away, I lay almost on my deathbed, crying myself to sleep every night, he had emotional difficulties that he faced.

Anybody in this room facing some things emotionally, you're just tired, exhausted, worn out, the hardship of life, the hardship of marriage, the hardship of children that have run from the Lord, the hardship of a job that doesn't pay enough for you to barely pay the bills, you're living from paycheck to paycheck, hard to live with a boss who, no matter how well you work, he just complains, or coworkers that because you're a person of faith, they ostracize you and put you aside, the difficulty of being in a school, maybe the grades are tough, or the bills that you have to pay in school, and isn't it great to have somebody to say this kind of prayer over you, remember, and fill in the blank your name, the hardships that they endured.

And then it switches gears here a little bit, remember, Lord, also how he swore to you, Lord, and how he vowed to the mighty one of Jacob, that's verse two, remember how he vowed and he swore. You're not supposed to swear, and you're not supposed to vow.

Jesus particularly said, don't make a vow, just let your yes be yes. And so what was it about David, what was in his heart, what was his until, the thing that he was waiting for, the thing that he was longing for, what was this thing that would cause him to say, hey, I know the rules say don't make promises and vows and swearing, but I gotta do it.

There's something so burning in my heart, I'm willing to break a few rules just to say this is my heart's desire. I want this thing, I long for this thing, and I swear I will obtain it, and I vow that I will do nothing else until this thing becomes a reality in my life.

And now in verse three, he begins to speak what he'll do to show the commitment that he's making to this vow of his desire until this thing that he longs to see in his life becomes a reality. He says, here's what I'm gonna do, I will not enter my house or get into my bed.

My wife and I, we travel quite a bit. Last month, I think we were home like three nights, so we're constantly on an airplane, we're constantly in hotel rooms, and some of you that travel know what it's like to come home and open the door and walk through there.

You know what you want more than anything? You want to get in your bed, your own bed. And so David is saying, I won't even get into my own bed. I can't put myself to sleep for this. He goes on to say that, verse four, I will not give sleep to my eyes, nor slumber to my eyelids.

And then verse five, just the first word, then look at me, until. Look at me now, just, he says, I'm gonna vow, I'm gonna swear, I'm not gonna sleep, I'm not gonna go to my bed, I'm not gonna get sleep to my eyes, I'm not gonna slumber to my eyelids, there's something so strong in his heart, and he was gonna do all those things until this happens.

Now, probably speaking metaphorically here, because I'm sure David slept, because it was gonna take him a long time before this reality of the until in his life became a reality to him, but he was speaking of the things that are part of his daily life.

I'll surrender this, I'll go without sleep, I'll go without food, I'll go without friends, I'll go without anything, because this one thing burns in my heart more than anything else, and he uses this word until, and that's where I'm kind of camping tonight, and wanna help you by asking a question, do you even have an until?

Does that make sense? Are you with me? Is there something in your life that is like, that's something I could swear I want more than anything else? I'll make a vow that nothing else will matter to me but that one thing.

Distinguishing Lesser Desires from the Divine Pursuit

Now, it would be very easy for King David to, in a context here, all the hardships he endured, verse one, and then he says, I'm gonna seek this one thing, it would be very easy to say, what I really want is to escape from these hardships.

That's my until, until my enemies are defeated, until the kingdom is back under my control, until this diseased body is healed, until my family comes back together, until all these hardships. Many of us, in our faith, our until is a good until but it's just a too small an until.

It's till I feel a little bit better, till my job goes a little bit better, till my wife treats me a little bit better, till my children come back home and start showing some respect and honor, till my boss encourages me, until I get a raise, or maybe if you're in ministry, until I get a pulpit and a platform, or until I get a pastoral ministry, or till my church grows.

All of us have an until. And those untils I'm talking about aren't bad untils, are they? They're good things but David doesn't go there, does he? He has a very different until. Now, as I said, there's three types of untils.

There's the until of an unhealthy or maybe even a sinful lifestyle. I'm not gonna sleep until I get more booze. I'm not gonna sleep until I, you know, fill in the blank and I don't even take time to go into the sinful things that we have as our until.

But then there's a healthier until and it's a good thing. You can have a good thing. Part of my until is until there's a call of God on my life. There's a call of God to teach the word. And so, Lord, until I can teach this word with grace and authority and power and love, I'm gonna keep pressing in.

I'm gonna keep growing. I'm gonna keep learning. I read books about how to preach. Some of you may not believe that, but I do. I study how to preach and I love preaching. And it's one of my untils, I wanna do this.

When I was pastoring, one of the untils was, I wanna see this church grow. More people come to know Jesus Christ. That's a really good, healthy until. I had an until in my family. I had a son who was running away from the Lord and until he comes back, I'm gonna not give myself sleep.

This is a healthy until in your life. But David doesn't go there. His until is not a sinful until, nor is his until a valid until about his calling. He could have said, until the kingdom gets back together, as I said just a moment ago, or until these things happen, until the two tribes of Israel that are separated come back together under my unity, and he doesn't do that.

We don't have time to turn there tonight, but 1 Chronicles chapter 13. David has now become, after fleeing from Saul, and now Israel, after Saul's death, is calling him back. And there was some division there, and some people didn't want him.

Some people from Saul's household were against him. But finally, all the people come together and say, David, we want you to be king. So David stands up, chapter 13, verse one, he stands up and he calls all the elders, all the leaders, all the tribes, all the people, probably tens of thousands of people there, and he gets up and gives his inaugural address.

And it would be like if the next president of the United States in 2024 stands up and says, here's my agenda. We want to strengthen the economy. We wanna close the southern border. We wanna stop the wars that are going on around the world.

We want peace between Republican and Democrat. And it could be, usually it's like an hour and a half speech, right? And he lays out his agenda. David has now become king of Israel. And he stands up in front of all his people and all his leaders, and he gives about a hundred word address.

And he only asks for one thing. All he asks for, he says, in the days of Saul, we did not seek the ark of God's presence. Under my leadership, the one thing I wanna do, and I won't rest, I won't give sleep to my eyes until we do this one thing, we wanna bring the ark of the covenant back into the people's presence.

The ark of the covenant, if you don't understand this, represents God's presence among the people. And it had been hidden away, and David, for 20 years it had been hidden away in a place called Kirith Jema.

And it was hidden in this place, and that place where it was hidden was being blessed, but the place where Israel's leadership was, where David's kingdom was, it was missing the presence of God. A lot of families, and please excuse me if this sounds harsh to you, a lot of families in this church have a lot of religious activities, but they're missing the presence of God.

The one thing we need more than anything else is the presence of God. And that's David's heart, that's his desire. So he stands up, it would be like the next president of the United States saying, I don't have a lot of an agenda, but what I wanna do is I wanna move the Statue of Liberty from, and I know you New Yorkers are gonna get mad at this, so hang on, but it's just my imagination rolling here.

I wanna move the Statue of Liberty from New York City to Washington, D .C. to represent freedom in our nation's capital. So David's saying, I wanna move the presence of God from where it is out in the village back into where it belongs among the leadership, among the people of God, where people can come in and out, where there can be praise and worship and the riches of his presence.

The Presence of God Above Every Christian Activity

And so there's many good things. When I was growing up in a church, we had a lot of guest speakers. Some of you might remember this growing up in church, or maybe even here, you have a guest speaker. I don't know about here at Times Square Church, but in a lot of churches, the guest speakers, I noticed this when I was a kid, the guest speakers, no matter what kind of ministry they were in, they presented their ministry as the most important type of ministry you could possibly be a part of in your life.

Does that make sense? So if you had a missionary come to your church and talk about missions, they would speak about missions as if there's nothing more important on God's heart except missions. But then the next week, somebody who is an intercessory prayer warrior would say, the most important thing on God's heart, the most important thing that you can give yourself to, your until should be, become an intercessory prayer warrior.

And I heard all these things, and we had three or four guest speakers a year, so man, my head was spinning, like I'm a missionary one month and then I'm an intercessory prayer warrior the next month. And I remember after hearing the intercessory prayer warrior saying, this is the most important thing, I remember that they recommended reading this book called Reese Howell Intercessor.

I don't know if you ever heard of that book or not, it's a good book, but I read the book of this man, Reese Howell Intercessor, and he prayed eight hours a day. And I was a teenager, I'm thinking, I'm gonna give my life to this thing, I'm gonna pray eight hours a day.

And I remember the first night trying to do this, I got down on my knees and said, God, I'm gonna be here for the next eight hours just seeking you, I'm gonna be the greatest intercessor in the world.

And I looked at my watch and I said, now, okay, I'm gonna start. Lord, bless my family, bless my mom, bless my dad, bless my brothers and my two sisters, and bless my school. And I look at my watch, it's like 30 seconds, and I'm like, ah.

I'll never make it as an intercessor, I'm going back to being a missionary. So God, I wanna be a worldwide missionary. And then somebody else would come and talk about worship, like, worship is like, that's what the angels and the elders do in heaven, and worship is the most important thing that you can do with your life.

And man, it just made me confused instead of helping me. And I'm a guest speaker here today, and I wanna tell you what the most important thing is. It's not missions, it's not evangelism, it's not worship, it's not prayer, it's not intercession, it's not discipleship, it's not preaching, it's not teaching, it's not community.

I'll say it like I believe it, it's the presence of God. The presence of God. Because if you're a missionary and you don't have the presence of God, you're not gonna see anybody come to Christ. You're gonna be an academic on the mission field trying to strategically make sense of the world.

Or if you're like me and you preach sermons occasionally, if you don't have the presence of God when you preach, you have nothing. You'll never make a disciple without the presence of God. Community will become a social club without the presence of God.

Listen to this, prayer meetings will be so dull and boring. You will hate to go to, and you'll come because your pastor's twisting your arm, and you're supposed to be a good Christian, but you won't enjoy it.

Prayer meetings need the presence of God. Worship, have you ever been in a worship service where it was brilliant, wonderful, but there was no presence of God? You know, I'd rather see Celine Dion than go to a worship service where they're trying to talk about God, but there's no presence of God.

No matter what we have, we need the presence of God. And David understood this. And so he says here, verse five, I'm not gonna do, I vow, I'm not gonna give anything, I'm not gonna sleep to my eyes until I find a place for the Lord, a dwelling place for the mighty one of Jacob.

David was saying, we haven't sought the Lord coming into our midst, his presence. We haven't sought that of his presence coming into our midst, and there's the one thing I wanna do, and I won't sleep until I do this, until the presence comes into my heart, to the presence comes into my song, to the presence comes into my prayer, to the presence come into when I read scripture, to the presence come in when I speak to my wife, to the presence come in when I'm leading the nations, to the presence come in when I'm kneeling in prayer.

David is saying, I need this Ark of the Covenant, I need the presence of God to come back into everything in my life. And I wanna say, this generation, if you're a millennial or a Gen Z, should the Lord tarry, you're going to need the presence of God more than ever before, because you will be living in a wicked culture, you'll be living in a culture that hates you, you'll be living in a culture that despises you, but you're gonna stand up in the middle of that, and you're not gonna be afraid, you're not gonna tremble in fear, you're not gonna be shy and backtrack, you're gonna say, I have the presence of God in my life, and I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

It could be the most dangerous generation for Christians coming up in the next decade or so, but it's going to be the most powerful, the most fruitful, there's gonna be a generation of young people coming up, I see some here tonight in this church, I see some of them in the worship team here, that they are desperate, they have this one thing until of David, that I don't want to get up on this stage just to sing songs and entertain people, I want the presence of God when I'm singing these songs.

When Pastor Patrick gets up here at six o 'clock before the seven o 'clock Tuesday night meeting, and he leads you in prayer, he doesn't get up here to be articulate and have clever prayers and sound like a theologian, he's desperate for God when he leads you to the presence of God.

And when Pastor Tim preaches, he's preaching out of the presence of God. That's why you're drawn here, that's why you're hungry to be here, that's why you're inviting your friends. It's the presence of God.

It's the presence of God. And David says, until I find a place. It's interesting, he doesn't say, until there's a mist around us, or until there's something kind of ether, just sort of in the ether, he says there's actually a place.

There's a place God wants to come. Ever since Genesis one, he came down, walked in the garden, remember that? And it says he came and walked in the cool of the garden. The cool there is another Hebrew word for the wind or the breath of God.

It wasn't just God coming like, I like the evening better, it's a little bit cooler, I don't like it when it's hot in the garden. No, he came and his breath came and visited Adam and Eve. And ever since that time, God has been looking, say, is there a place?

Adam and Eve hid from that place. Is there a place I can come? And that place is a people, it's you individually. It can be your family, or you can say, God, I want to be a place. I want to be a place where your spirit will rest upon me.

I want to be a place where your presence dwells. I want this to be my until. My until is not great sermons. My until is not big crowds. My until is not writing a great book. My until is not even having a good family.

My until is not having a healthy body. My until is not being wealthy or comfort and ease. My until is that the presence of God comes into my life. And he dwells, and he says, and Jesus delights to say, I found a place.

I found a place to dwell. And it's not just people either. It's because he doesn't say here, I want to find a people. He says a place. I find that phenomenal, that the omnipotent, omnipresent God, all powerful, everywhere at all times.

He's like here, and he's in the Bronx, and he's where I live in Colorado, and he's in Africa, and he's in Asia, all the same times. He's in the heavens, and he's in the earth. He's below the earth. He's everywhere.

And then all of a sudden he says, but I want a place where I can manifest my presence. There's a difference between the omnipresence, meaning the all-presence of God. There's a difference between the presence of God being everywhere and the manifest presence of God, where he comes and says, I'm gonna sit right here with this people.

I'm gonna be pleased to come. And I find that to be in a family. It can be in a small group. And it certainly can be in a church. It certainly can be a Times Square church where God says, I want a place.

I've been looking for a place. I desire a place. I long for a place. Is there a place that is there for me to come? You see, and it's hard to find. I know it sounds horrible, like I'm being very judgmental, but it's hard to find.

It's hard for God to find a place because many of our places aren't for him. They're for us. Like the worship team gets up there and sings songs for you, and then you decide whether you like that song or not, or you like that tempo or not, or whether it's from Australia or California or not.

Whether it's more hip and vibe, or is it old school, like hymns. And we think worship is for us, but it's not. The place that God is looking for is not for you. It's for him. The songs, it doesn't matter whether you like them or not.

The question in this house is, does he like them? You go like, that really didn't minister to me. That's a big deal. It's not for you, it's for him. Now you can join in and minister to him as well, and then you'll get blessed.

But if you're just sitting back judging, is this for me, is this touching me, is this changing me? You know, you're on the wrong track. You have the wrong until. I'm gonna go to church until I find a church that has my style, or the preacher preaches the way I like.

No, you go to church to minister to him. It's, Lord, I'm here for you. You want a place, you want to dwell, and I want to come into this congregation and offer you a body, and offer you a place to minister, to be ministered to, until I find a place, a dwelling place for the mighty one of Jacob.

Seeking God’s Presence as the One Essential

And so, it's important that you have an open heart to the place of God, that you're looking intimately towards him, to just get near to him. And then it says in verse six, behold, we have heard of it, the Ark of the Covenant.

We've heard of it, and this Hathrath is actually a region of Israel where Bethlehem is found. And so, the writer here is saying, David won't rest until he brings the presence of God into his people, because he knows that's the most important thing.

If he's gonna fight wars, he needs the presence of God. If he's gonna preach sermons, he needs the presence of God. If he's gonna sing songs, he needs the presence of God, so he understands this. And he says, we've heard about this.

Okay, tonight, so far, you're hearing about the manifest presence of God. All right, and I hope it's changing your until. I hope it's changed. Right now, your until is no longer, I wanna get rich and famous, and I wanna keep myself healthy.

Those are okay, they're okay untils. And you can have some better untils. Until my children grow up in the Lord, until I have a healthy marriage, those are even better untils. But the best of until of all is until I have the presence of God in my life.

Once I have that presence of God in my life, then I have everything that I could possibly want. And then it goes on. So we heard of it, but then it says, but we found it in the fields of Ja 'ar. And that's where the Ark of the Covenant had been.

It had another name, but here they're calling it Ja 'ar. And they said, so we heard about it in Bethlehem, but we found it in Ja 'ar. It's like, I hope, man, the purpose of this message tonight is that you find a bigger until, that you get rid of lesser untils, that you're no longer coming to God just that, Lord, my until is that I feel better about my life.

My until is till I get the job that I want. My until is, fill in the blank, that in the grace and kindness of God, he wants to bless those secondary untils, but he's looking for a place and a people that have underneath that place, a deeper place, a more powerful place, a stronger place, a place where you're saying, God, it has to be this one thing that I desire.

That's what David said in one of those Psalms. One thing I ask, one thing I desire, that I might dwell in the house of the Lord, the place of the Lord all the days of my life. Better is one day in your courts than over almost three years elsewhere.

One day, I'd rather be a doorkeeper in the house of the Lord. This is the king walking into the tent he has set up. He didn't take the Ark of the Covenant when he brought it back. He didn't take the Ark and place it up in the tabernacle that Solomon had built.

He built a little tent for it so it could be right next to him in Jerusalem. And I can just picture him going there every day, and he walks by the doorkeeper, the usher, and he goes, man, King David said, I am so jealous.

Can you put the throne on and give me the red vest so that I could just be a doorkeeper in your house? Why would you want to be a doorkeeper, David, says the usher to him. Because then I could just worship, and I could dwell in his presence.

The Ark of the Covenant's there with the cherubim with the wings over it, and I could sit under it, and I could write Psalms like he that dwelleth in the shadow of the secret place shall abide under the shadow of the Most High.

I'll dwell in the house of the Lord all the days. And David is just, David is driven by this thing. Extremely passionate about this thing. And then skipping ahead the last few minutes I have with you verse 13, for the Lord has chosen Zion.

He has desired it for his dwelling place. Two words here, the first word that comes to mind is the word that we used in the previous verses. What is it? Place. God is very interested in place. He's interested in this place.

Jesus is, he is part of the Trinity, so he's omnipresent, he's everywhere at all times. But he's also the man Christ Jesus. The humanity never went away, so I know this sounds a bit strange, but Jesus is somewhere right now.

Physically, he's somewhere. Not likely in this room. But there's this man, Christ Jesus. But his spirit, the Holy Spirit comes, and it says, Jesus being part of the Trinity, his divinity can be in one place at one time, but he can also be manifesting himself through the Holy Spirit in places where there's hunger for the things of God.

My question is, is this your until? Is this a hunger in you? Do you long for that to be your place? And I'll just tell you, the older I get, that's kind of really the only thing that's important to me anymore.

I mean, I love my family. I love my children, my 10 grandchildren. I love my wife. Do you see up there singing? She's beautiful. Man, she's so easy. She's so easy to love. But you know, Pastor Tim and I, I don't know if you were like me when I was young.

Were you ambitious at all? Yeah, he was ambitious. So when you're a young minister, you want like, you know, to get invited to the place or to be on the stage at that conference with that other famous, you know, and they were more famous than you and you get to preach next to them and maybe you'll be next in line.

And you have this, your until is all those things. And I know Tim and I are exactly the same. Don't give a hoot about that stuff anymore, you know? You guys know what hoot means? Don't care. Times Square Church is a world-renowned church.

It doesn't mean anything to me to come up here tonight. It's just, it's the same thing as a small group with my own staff just sharing the desire. Can we have an until in our life? You see what I'm saying?

It's, these other things are good. It's good to have opportunity to preach. It's good to have things that you want to see until God moves, but you'd have a deeper until. And the older I get, the more I get, the more I'm just like, I think in my 60s, I finally found what my until is.

It's not to write books, it's not to preach sermons, it's not to do pastor's conferences, it's not to lead a missions group. All those things I love, they're good secondary untils. But in my 60s, I finally found I have a one thing until now.

And until, I just, man, I just want his presence, you know? Amen. Man, I just, I just, man, I just want him to, like, he's there, he's right there. Like, he holds my hand. He lets me be the apple of his eye.

He lets me walk with him and talk with him. He lets me, you know, I was studying the apple of, this is not my notes, but I was studying the apple of, the apple of my eye this morning, and the Hebrew there that doesn't actually use the word apple, it's translated because in English, Shakespeare wrote a poem about the apple of our eye, and people understood that as being the, something that's of core value to you.

But actually, in the Hebrew, it's the dark of your eye. And so, Jesus wants us to be the dark of his eye, and he wants him to be the dark of our eye. And what that means in the original language there is that you get so close to somebody, you can see, listen, this is what the meaning is.

You get so close to somebody, you can see your own image in the dark of their eye, all right? Now, I'm not gonna do this, but, you know, if I asked Elder Chris to come up on the stage here, and he was standing right there, and I'd say, Elder Chris, I want us to be the, I want to be the apple of your eye, okay?

But we have to get so close to each other that you can see my image in your eyeball, which means we'd be about that close to each other, which Elder Chris and I are not gonna be getting that close together tonight, okay?

All right? Because I love him, and he's a great man, but over the years, we haven't cultivated a relationship where he's the apple of my eye. But if I asked my wife, Kelly, to come up here, I mean, it'd be dangerous, because I'd get that close, and I'd forget all about you, I'd be like, ooh, man, she's got some lips on her.

I'd be just going all the way in, you know? And that's what Jesus is saying about this manifest presence, it's to get that close to him. And once you have that, the sweetness, the glory, the beauty, the majesty, the splendor, the love, the grace, the kindness, it just comes all over you, and just like, I don't want anything else.

Take the whole world, but give me Jesus. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. And I got a subject here, verse 13. Sorry. The Lord has chosen Zion. He has desired it for his dwelling place. Verse 14, this is my resting place forever.

God’s Desire for Intimate Fellowship

Here I will dwell, for I have, what, desired it. So, David is saying, I have this one thing, passion, I don't want anything else but this one thing, I won't give myself rest until I get this thing, this is what I'm gonna give my whole life for, and then in return, God says, I desire the same thing.

Isn't that awesome? That God's saying, I have an until as well. That I'm the apple of your eye, and you're the apple of my eye. That we are, that we walk together, that we talk together, that we love one another, that we're intimate.

That's God's plan for your life. If you're a young adult here, like, what's God's plan for my life? Is it to be married, is it to get rich, is it to get an apartment? All those things could be great, but God's plan for you is for you to come into an intimate place with Jesus, where he manifests his presence in your life, where he becomes your all in all.

Stand with me, if you will, please. Worship team's gonna come back. Amen, amen. Just, how many of you would just wave at me and just say, I might need to up my game on until-ness. It's not a word, but I'm just making it up here tonight.