Keep sharing good news without ads.
May 9/2026 | Breakout session C-1 | Presentation by Jeff Shawver.
This recording is from our Grace Fellowship Church conference, Behold Our God 2026. Please visit our website at gfcedmonton .ca. You can also find us on Instagram at GraceChurchYag, all one word, or on Facebook at Grace Fellowship Church.
You can also find us on Spotify, YouTube, or wherever else you listen to your favorite podcasts. Please enjoy the following.
Recording. Now let me ask you a personal, can everybody understand me with my accent? Okay, you know, sometimes I come up north, and I've been in a church before, and this is, I promise, this is a true story.
I've been in a church, and I started speaking, and everybody started laughing. And I didn't know what was going on. I literally looked down and think, is something on my face? Like, and then it finally hit me, oh, it's my accent.
And so then that's when I said, well, I'm not from around here. But so good to see you guys, and you know, Psalm 42 says, as the deer pants for the water brooks, soul, my soul pants for you, oh God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
When shall I come and appear before God? And I trust that that's our souls as well. And I know that that's not always the case in this regard. And we are but flesh and bone, flesh and blood. And sometimes, you know, we wake up early in the morning, and we just do not feel like prayer.
Honest to goodness, I understand that. And you have to smack yourself almost, you almost have to throw some water on your face and remind your soul, preach to yourself the importance and the priority of this thing called communion with God.
And so I understand that. So by far, I am no means an expert. Okay? You could probably ask me questions, and I will not know the answer in this regard. But I know that I have predetermined and made a covenant with my soul that regardless of anything else, I will give myself to the Lord.
And you can ask Brother Ben, you can come into my office, and I'll have a whiteboard piece of paper, kind of like a large sticky note. You ever seen those? They're really large. And I've just got several things written on that sticky note, because those are things that I will determine to make sure I do during that day.
And the first one on that list is to give my whole heart in prayer. Not to give half, not to give just but a little, but the whole heart. Some dramatic effect there, see? She's hooking me up, man, like y 'all didn't even know.
And pretty soon the lights are going to go and start flickering, and the smoke and the fog is going to roll in, and we're going to hit this thing up right. But I'm just simply a man here to, I don't know, share my burden with you guys.
And it's not going to be anything crazy. I understand that. But I want to impress upon you the reality of this thing called communion with God. To make it a priority in your life. And we're going to do this by talking about it a little bit, but we're also going to look at what communion is not.
Okay? What communion is not. Because the truth of the matter is, the enemy will have you substitute communion. And you will think you are in communion with him because you have taken something and substituted it for this little section of your life.
And you end up fooling yourself. And then I'm going to give some practical advice, things that's helped me. We can even go through maybe some practical things that I do myself. But I want to talk about the thing we typically neglect when it comes to not only prayer, or our mentality about it, but we typically don't practice it.
So it's kind of like the hidden thing that I have personally found probably be the most life-changing aspect in communion. Okay? Now, so let's take a little bit and think through this thing again. And actually, let's go to the Lord right now and actually pray before we even do anything else.
Let's pray. Father, we read the psalmist here. God, how his soul pants for you, Lord. And in many ways, Lord, that is what we desire. We desire to draw near knowing that you will draw near to us. We desire this experiential communion with you, this walk with you all the days of our life.
We want to say with the prophets, though there's no fruit on the tree, though there's no cattle in the stall, yet if we have you and we know that your face is upon us, then we have all things. So God, help us as we discuss this, as we look at it, as we think through it.
Lord, we ask that you would please help us in this time. In Christ's name, amen. Knowing him, communing with him is the one thing that is necessary in this life. It truly is. It is our greatest privilege.
It is the greatest honor that we have. You know, regardless if you are in the ministry and you're a preacher or a pastor or you have some role within the church, that does not matter. For the smallest of believers, for the child in his first breath as a new creation or the widow in her final breath before she crosses over that Jordan, the priority, the greatest privilege that you will ever experience on this planet is coming into the presence of God.
It's our greatest joy. And here's the thing, the enemy knows this, and he is going to do everything possible to stop this thing called communion. You know, I work with Paul Washer in HeartCry, and so I know Ben's heard this illustration before, but it's been so helpful to me just to think of it this way.
Imagine you are in a hospital. You are on life support. You got that iron lung. That thing is keeping you alive, okay? You are fully cognitive in all of your abilities, but you cannot leave that bed. You have this machine that is keeping you alive.
It is breathing for you. It is causing that heart to beat, and then there is one plug that runs out from your bed across the little gap there into the wall. Now, let's say a noisy janitor enters that room with his headphones on, and he's sweeping just carelessly, and here he is about to go right toward that plug.
What would you do? Your eyes are going to be on that plug. Hey, hey, no, stop, because what? That is your life as a believer, or that is your life there in that bed, and if he unplugs that, then everything, it's only a matter of time before you die, and that's the same thing when it comes to our communion and our prayer life with the Lord.
That's the way we have to think about it. The truth of the matter is men can do phenomenal things religiously, okay? You can memorize the entirety of the scriptures. You can preach. You can teach. You can fast.
You can lead. You can pray in public. You can be a faithful member, but without this communion, well, hang on a minute. Let me just put it. Everything I just named, that's what the Pharisees did, and those Pharisees didn't even know God.
You understand that? What separates us as believers here is that great promise of the new covenant. They will know me, and I will know them. They will be my people, and he will be my God. From the least of them to the greatest, they will know me.
They will sup with me, and that's it. You know, Tozer said this, today we have a bunch of people sitting around talking about God, but very few who actually talk to him. Man, that is such a true, and I fear for modern day church, honest to goodness, because in many ways it feels like we just serve an academic God in some ways.
Again, we are people full of knowledge, and yet there seems to be so little fruit, and it's so easy just to live a principle-based life, and it's so hard to actually draw close to him. It's so easy to live a principle-based life, but a principle-based life does not give you any power in the Christian life.
It doesn't. I've tried it for years, and it ends up being frustration, and frustration, and frustration. The key is communion. It just seems like people don't talk about this aspect hardly anymore, but the truth of the matter is that's the thrust of the scriptures, is it not?
When Adam and Eve were removed from the garden, it's not the fruit trees that was the damage that was lost. It's not the peace and comfort of the garden or the grass by the river that they longed for after that.
The great damage of their sin was now sin has created a separation between them and their God, that free communion that they once enjoyed walking with him in the cool of the day unhindered. They now felt their guilt.
They felt their shame. They tried to cover themselves, and when their father cries out to them, where do we find them hiding from him? That's the great damage. That's the great damage through Christ. We haven't been brought in to communion with him.
Oh, like a deer that pants for that water brook, so my soul pants for you, oh God. That has to be developed in you. Think about Moses, Exodus chapter 33. We all know the story. Moses is upon the mountain.
He comes down. We find the children of Israel. They've now created this golden calf. God is angry. Moses is angry, and God comes to Moses and says at the beginning of 33, he says these words, I will send an angel before you, and I will drive out the Canaanite, and the Amorite, and the Hittite, and the Peresite, and the Hivite, and the Jebusite.
Go up into a land flowing with milk and honey. He says, my presence won't go with you, but I'll send an angel before you, and this angel will go as a warrior before you, and he will remove all of your enemies, and he will give you a land of milk.
An angel will go, and we know Moses' response, don't we? He's like, no. I mean, just think about that. I mean, just think about what God was going to give them. He was going to give them everything carnally that they desired.
Everything carnally that they desired. Food in abundance, protection by the strong and mighty angel, comfort. They wouldn't even have to fight their own battles, and yet Moses says, if your presence does not go with us, do not lead us up from here.
That's Exodus 33 .15. You see, Moses wanted God. Moses had spent time face-to-face as a man talks to his friend. Moses knew intimately this communion of this presence of this almighty whose hand came down, and it burned upon that mountain.
Moses knew him. He had experienced the joy that it was in spending time with his God, and he would have nothing else but God's presence, and if you're just going to send an angel, then kill me here with the rest of the children, because I do not want to go without you.
Now, what about you? What do you desire? I mean, what is it? Could the Lord offer you that you would say, okay, that sounds good. A comfortable life, a children that all grow up healthy and wise, and a family that never has any kind of fights, a thriving ministry, a church that has an overabundance of money that can do great stuff with missions, or whatever the case may be?
What is it? Are you willing to trade anything, anything, or are you willing to go into the depths of the desert if you know God's presence is there, and not have any comforts, to struggle your entire life, to be called to be a preacher, and to go out on the streets and not see one conversion, to go into a distant and dark land in the middle of Asia, and suffer with disease after disease, and rash, and after rash, but yet you know His presence is with you?
Which one do you take? That's the reality of it, and that's what we have to think about. Listen, Moses desired the Lord, and that is the main thrust of all the scriptures, is it not? It is the blessing of the law.
You know, we as Reformed group, we argue about this law so much. What's the uses of the law? And stuff like that, and we get all tense, but no one really talks about the blessing of the law. What's the law promise for those who obey?
That He would be their God, and they would be His people, and they would know Him. It's amazing. The call to the prophets, the call of the prophets, come back to Him, come back, press on, oh press on to know Him.
The great joy of the psalmists is knowing Him, and in His presence. The great promise of the new covenant is that each and everyone would know me from the least of them to the greatest of them. Even the promise of the consummation, that the glory of the Lord would fill the earth as the waters cover the sea.
It's all about walking in communion with Him. It's not necessarily about what we do and what these hands can build. It's all about knowing and walking with Him. That's why you were created. That's why I was created.
Not just a knowledge about Him, but a true knowledge of Him. We understand the difference, right? Listen, a doctor knows more about my wife than I do. Honestly. He can tell me everything about her circulatory system.
He can tell me everything that happens when she has a swollen eardrum, or whatever the case may be. Or he can do blood panel work and tell me all the symptoms she might feel in her body. He can tell me information about my wife that I would never even know at all.
But I know her. That's right. And I don't even have to look at my wife to know I see a little kid on the street or whatever, or I hear somebody say something. I already know what the look on her face is.
And I know that when she hears something or someone's telling me a story, I don't even have to turn around. I know she's weeping already. Why? Because I know her. And that doctor will never know her like I know her.
That's the kind of true knowledge we are talking about. It is the believer who walks so close with God when he looks at the vastness of this world, when he sees the things that are taking place upon this earth.
He already knows the reaction of his father because he spent much, much time with him. It has to be the priority of your life. It's good to know systematic theology and understand the attributes of God.
No doubt about it. But so could the Pharisee. He could know that what separates men, what separates us as a people is we seek his face and he communes with us. And when we see his glory as in a mirror, then we ourselves is transformed.
One old missionary, my mentor, actually, he would always hammer, hammer, hammer me in this reality. And he would always say, life really comes down to one thing. And that's the reality. Life comes down to one thing for every one of us.
There is one thing in our life that's more precious than anything else among us. And you could put whatever the case may be. How about a new car versus your children? Which one are you going to choose?
Well, that's the stupid Jeff, your children. All right. Well, what about your children and your wife? Which one? Okay, well, let's just pick the wife. What about the wife and the Lord? You see, life comes down to really one thing in this regard.
What's the one thing for you? What's the one thing for you? You know, what was the one thing for David? Anybody can tell me? King David, Psalm 27, four. Do you know it? One thing, David says, one thing I've asked of the Lord that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life to behold the beauty of the Lord and to meditate in his temple.
One thing, David says, if I have one request that you have to give me, oh God, it is this. Just let me dwell in the tabernacle. Man, what a weird request. I mean, we think of the tabernacle and, you know, it just comes to tabernacle.
Well, whatever. But man, you know, a tabernacle, the screams of a dying goat, the blood that is just all over the place and spatters of artery going up everywhere, the smell of death, of refuse. And I've lived on a farm.
And I know what happens when you slaughter a pig or slaughter a cow in this regard. That's what it was. And yet he says, I'll dwell there all the days of my life because he wasn't looking at that. He was knew that God's presence was there in that tabernacle.
And he wanted to be as close as he could to the presence of the Lord. His purpose was to behold the beauty of the Lord. And he could see that in the dying of the animal, in the priest pronouncing forgiveness of sin, in the smell of that dead corpse, when it hits that burning offer.
I don't know. You guys have steak houses around here where they blow out the smoke to try and attract you up in there? You know, that's what the smell was. It went from just a bleeding animal to a smell of a T-bone steak on that altar, a pleasing aroma unto the Lord.
But he looked all of that and he could see the beauty of his God and his grace being extended to the center. One thing I've asked of the Lord that I may dwell in his house close to his presence. That's the one thing.
We see Jesus teach this as well. Do you remember the story of Mary and Martha? Luke chapter 10, right? We all know it. Martha, she's all busy, busy doing preparations, busy with what Christ says, distractions.
And you know, she sees Mary there at the feet of Christ, listening to his instruction. Well, that kind of, you know, makes her mad a little bit. And so she comes over there and she talks to Jesus and she says, won't you tell her to get up?
I'm paraphrasing here, obviously. Jesus didn't speak with a redneck accent. You know, won't you tell her, get on up here and help me out. No, get on up, help me out. And you remember what Jesus said? Arthur, Martha, you're worried and bothered about so many things, but one thing is necessary.
And Mary has chosen the good part and it shall not be taken away from her. Man, what a lesson to you. And one thing is necessary. She's chosen the good part. It shall not be taken away from her. You know, just think about that situation, by the way.
Was Martha doing something sinful? In fact, she was actually in obedience to hospitality, doing exactly what she should have been doing when a guest shows up at your house. But it wasn't just a normal guest, my friends.
The guest that was at her house was Christ Jesus himself. And she was busy with all her preparations in her obedience and she was missing the greatest blessing right there before her. And he said, Martha, Martha, one thing is necessary.
Man, we live such busy lives, don't we? Don't we? Yeah. I don't care. Go ahead. That's right. It does. Absolutely. That's right. Well, that's exactly it. If the king shows up into the city or whatever, go spend time with him.
Don't be out in the streets sweeping, trying to make it nice. But we do live such busy lives, don't we? And, you know, I'm a bivocational guy. I have to show up at 7 .55 at heart cry. So I'm strapped this time with anybody else.
I got a full time family. I'm also an elder at the church and I work for heart cry full time. There's a lot of busyness here and there's always just danger in activity. You got kids that need to go places.
They got teeth to get worked on. They got all these things to get worked on. So busyness, it's a necessary thing. I mean, there's things that have to take place, but there is only one thing necessary.
That's the point. Only one thing necessary. And that is to be at the feet of Christ in communion with him. Listen, this might be a little radical, but better it is to have dirty dishes in your house and not have everything spotless and have a wife that communes with God.
Hey, come on up. Well, that's it. I mean, busyness, especially if it's a spiritual busyness, man, it can it can be very dangerous. It can be very dangerous. But the truth is I'm wanting to set in your heart that there is one thing necessary.
There's one thing that keeps you alive, and that's that plug in the cord. As soon as you pull it, you can still go through the motions, but it'll be totally different. And you can fool yourself into thinking, well, he's walking with me, but it will be totally different.
I'm telling you this. You must make sure you protect that time you have before the Lord. In fact, I would go to the radical part of this. That is the most important time of your day. Nothing should touch it.
In fact, you should structure the entirety of your schedule, not according to the appointments that you have, but according to the appointment that you need. And that was the secret for old men as well.
So let's talk a little bit about now that I've kind of set the priority a bit. Let's talk a little bit about what communion is not. Number one, communion is not our union with Christ, okay? Communion is not our union with Christ.
We're not talking about our union in Christ. The moment a man repents and places his faith in Christ, he is united to the Savior eternally. His guilt, his sin is done away with through the death of the Savior, through the death of Christ.
There is now no more condemnation for those who are in Christ. When the man comes to Christ, he is sealed with the Spirit. He is justified. He is adopted. He is given an inheritance that will not fade away.
That's the reality of it. That union is secured. It is unchanging. It is static. It is not dynamic. Once you're there, once you're in Christ, you will never be removed from that of Christ. Nothing, nothing, nothing can separate us from the love of Christ.
Now, however, our union cannot be lost. You understand? Our union with Christ cannot be lost, but our communion with Christ can be lost. Do we understand the difference there? When we sin, we do not lose our union with Christ, but my gosh, we can lose our communion with Him.
And when we sin, we might not lose our salvation, but we can lose the assurance of our salvation, the joy of our salvation. And it's like me and my wife. Maybe I say something really boneheaded to her and I sin against her.
That doesn't annoy our marriage. Well, I'm still married to her. You know, I might have sinned against her or said something absolutely stupid. Can I use that word in Canada, stupid? Stupid to her. Okay, I could say something stupid to her and I sin against her.
That doesn't mean the marriage certificate rips. No, I'm still in union with her, but by goodness, the communion's now been hindered a bit, hasn't it? And it's not until I come to her in repentance, confessing that of my sin, that that communion with her is now established again.
Our union is not our communion with Christ. Yes, yes. So let's save the questions because I'm on a limited time here until afterwards and then we can jump. I'll spend the next break with you, man, and write all your questions down and we'll hit them up, okay?
Yeah, yeah, because there is a teaching out there about this, you know, carnal Christianity, you know, that a man can just make a confession of sin and then live like the devil. And it's this once saved, always saved, eternal security that you guys have probably heard and it's probably here in Canada as well, I'm sure, but that's the reality.
They think to themselves, well, I've said this one initial prayer and therefore I am in full communion with the Lord. That is not right. Sin hinders us, no doubt. So our union is not our communion with God.
Union static, communion dynamic. Number two, communion is not spiritual disciplines. You know, we're called to be a disciplined people. We are disciplined ourself unto godliness, 1st Timothy 4, 7. Paul says that he disciplines his body, he makes it his slave.
Discipline is good. It's a great thing. I'm not saying anything negative about discipline, but the reality is you can be the most disciplined person in all the world and not have communion with him. Spiritual disciplines, they are nothing more than structures in our life, okay?
They're not moral in quality. A spiritual discipline is not the actual fruit of the spirit. It's just a structure that we put in our life to allow time for us to, within that structure, commune and do our devotional disciplines.
It's just a structure. You know, if I discipline myself to go to the gym for an hour every single day, that doesn't mean I'm going to come out looking like Arnold Schwarzenegger. It doesn't. I could go sit in a gym, just sit there, and not do a single thing with any weight whatsoever.
The spiritual structure, that's the discipline, but that does not necessarily mean that you are in communion with God, and I see this because I have taught this in and of myself. You see this young man who's struggling with, let's just say, lust, you know, and you want to help that guy out.
He's struggling with this lust. It is burning within him, and so, you know, you look at his life, and the man is staying up way too late. He's on too many little tablets. He's on his phone way too much.
You know, he's waking up way too late, and so you just, as a pastor or whatever, you counsel him. You need to be a more disciplined man. You need to go to bed at 10 o 'clock. You need to set limits on your tablets.
You don't need to be on social media 24 -7. In fact, you need to open the scriptures and read the scriptures, and then you're telling that, and he starts putting those things in place, and he thinks to himself, I'm actually growing spiritually.
That's not true. That just means you've grown in the structure, in the discipline, but what you're doing inside of those disciplines is actually what is key, and what typically happens and what he discovers, just really quickly, what he struggles with is it doesn't do a single thing for lust, and he still burns, and then he still thinks to himself, my gosh, I don't get it.
I'm waking up early. I'm reading the Word. I'm going to bed. I'm not getting on my tablet as much, but yet I still can't fight this thing. Why is it killing me? And so, he thinks naturally to himself, well, I need to be more disciplined then.
I'm missing something here. You see the pattern. You see the pattern, and unfortunately, some pastor, and I've done this myself, so I am guilty before God in this reality. You got to come in and teach them how to commune with that of the Lord in this time.
So, spiritual disciplines are not communion, not communion. The expansion of our knowledge is not communion. I know this is a dangerous one here. This is a really dangerous one because it is exciting to learn things.
It is. I mean, you all know the feeling once you're reading something, and something in the Scripture has popped out at you, or you read a Puritan work, or just see something, whatever the case may be, and it just hits you like a freight train, and your heart gets all excited, and you think to yourself, my goodness, this is rich.
This is awesome, and it's exciting. That is a good thing. I'm not saying that that is a bad thing whatsoever, but it's not communion. Communion is a two-sided street. Listen, I can pull up the works of John Bunyan.
I can look up his autobiography. I can read everything that he has ever wrote. I can read all about his life. I can read about others who have written about him. I can read about his friends who actually had interactions with him, and I can learn everything I know about John Bunyan that's ever been produced upon this earth, but guess what?
I don't have communion with John Bunyan because John Bunyan's dead. You see that? But yet it's exciting to learn, and sometimes we can fool ourselves into thinking, oh man, I'm learning something new, and my heart is being uplifted, and we can just naturally think I'm walking with the Lord.
That's not true, and it's a danger, especially in the Reformed community, no doubt about it. Learning things without actually going to him is the difference between a torch and the sun. You know, let's say it's dark at night, and there's a garden there, and I light that torch, and I stick it in the ground on that garden.
Boop! Man, I've been doing that noise a lot. Boop! Okay, well that light lights up the garden. All the little bugs and the critters, they run from the light, no doubt about it, right? And it has benefits.
Now I can walk through the garden without having to step on one of my tomato plants, but the truth of the matter is that garden can't grow by the light of a torch. It's not until that sun crests the horizon, and it feels that warm heat of a different kind of heat that the actual plants begin to grow and flourish.
Mere information is like the light of a torch in application in communion with God is like the sun that comes up that causes growth in us. Communion is not ministry activity. You can go to church every time the doors open, you can visit the poor, you can run yourself ragged with all the activities, and you can think that you're having communion with God, but ministry activity is not communion.
It's not. You know what Christ taught in Matthew chapter 7 at the end of the Sermon on the Mount? Many will say to me on that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name? Did we not cast out demons?
Did we not perform many miracles? And he says, I never knew you. You did lots of religious activities, but I never ever knew you. Some of the most terrifying scriptures in all of God's word right there.
I never knew you. We never had communion together. Your life was activity. And lastly, communion is not prayer. Oh, I know that one hurts, but just hear me out here a little bit, okay? Many men are engaged in prayer and communion is not necessarily prayer.
We know the story of the tax collector and the Pharisee, don't we? You got that Pharisee up front praying to himself, thanking God that he's not like other people, swindlers and unjust and adulterers, and even that tax collector, look, I fast twice a week.
You know, I paid my tithes on every single thing, and yet what do we read as the point of that parable? He wasn't praying to the Lord. He was engaged in prayer. He was actually even thankful for God. He was involved in a lot of religious activity in that regard, and yet he walked away from the temple not justified.
Not justified. Listen, men can pray for all kinds of reasons. You know, you can pray out of habit. You can pray out of guilt. You can pray because I asked you to pray. That doesn't necessarily mean you're having communion with the Lord in this regard.
You see, communion is just more than words out of my mouth into the ear of God in order to move the hand of God. That's the way most people think of prayer, but communion is exactly what Thomas Watson said yesterday.
It's the soul's breathing out into the bosom of his heavenly Father, seeking his face, seeking the one thing necessary. It's not just seeking his hand. It is seeking his face. So, communion is the intentional getting away with your heavenly Father for a deep, real, experiential fellowship with him.
Prayer is not just simply a link to God's resources. It's a link to God himself. Like I said yesterday, he will give to you, and we see that example all throughout the scriptures. You know the famous verse, we've heard it said many times, you seek me, you will seek me and find me when you search for me with all of your heart.
I seek, I find because he reveals himself when I seek for him with all of my heart. That's communion. It's fellowship. It's abiding in Christ. It's experiential, and this happens in a secret place, my friends.
It happens when you get away without any distraction, and you lay your soul bare before him like pouring out a glass of water on the ground. You ever poured out a glass of water on the ground, and everything just goes super thin, and it just runs?
That is the best picture of prayer that I know of. Everything inside of here comes everything outside of here and all over here, and when you empty yourself, oh, when you go low, he'll dip those lips into the river of his delight, and you will dream deeply of it.
Beautiful. So what does communion look like? And I can't read that clock. I needed something digital. Quarter after, so I got 15 minutes, and then I'm here to answer questions, anything. It doesn't really matter.
Well, let me just ask this. When we find man coming in, this is the hidden aspect that I want to kind of give you a little aid, a little help that we don't typically think about, but it has been a great benefit to my soul, and so let me share that.
It's not a secret or anything like that. I'm not some kind of shawmy or whatever. I don't even know, is that even a word, shawmy? I have no idea. I just make stuff up. It sounds good, though, don't it?
You got the picture of a guy with a turban on his head, you know, but you get it, okay? Whatever the case may be, but so this is not some kind of secret or anything like this, but I'll tell you, this is probably one of the more helpful things that I've come across, and it's really impacted to me, and I'll just simply ask this question.
When we see men coming into the presence of God in the scriptures, what do we typically see? Humility. What else? Somebody. Anybody. Fear. What else? What? Ah. Good. Anything else? Trust. All right, what about the man's position?
Okay, all these are right, but now I want you, next time you start reading through the scriptures, when you see men coming into the presence of God, you will simply see two things usually associated with this.
Well, actually one big word, and it encompasses everything that you guys have said. Worship. When Moses had that great petition, show me your glory, God shows him his glory by declaring his name before him.
What's the immediate action of Moses? Falls to his face and worships. When other visions happen, what's the immediate reaction of men? I'm a man of unclean lips. I fall down. You got Daniel falling down.
John, as we saw last night, fell down as a dead man. There are two great ideas that's always associated with this idea of worship. Anytime man comes into the presence of God, it's worship. The two great ideas associated with worship that we always see in the scriptures, number one, there is a bowing down.
A bowing down. Number two, there's an offering. A bowing down and an offering. The bowing down, we see this all throughout, do we not? Psalm 95 6, come let us worship, let us bow down, let us kneel before the Lord God our maker at the establishment of the tabernacle, at the establishment of the temple, at the completion of the burnt offerings.
We see all the kings that were present, when the glory came down, they bowed their face to the ground and worshiped. Even, which makes it even awesomer, awesomer, there's another good word, awesomer, that even at the magi's visit with Christ.
You know, in the whole Old Testament, we see this idea, God comes down, people hit their knees in worship, and yet the magi, when they come to this babe Christ, what do we read? They saw the child with Mary, his mother, and they fell to the ground and worshiped him, and they opened their treasures, don't forget this part, and they presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
When man comes into God's presence, he bows the knee. Now listen, we look in the scriptures and we find men praying with their eyes open, their eyes shut, their heads down, their heads up, their hands stretched on their knees, we see all types of postures in prayer in the scriptures, but I have to ask, do you intentionally get on your knees before God?
I'm not saying that to condemn you, I'm saying that to encourage you, try it, spend some time up on your knees recognizing who he is and calling out to him. Now, we're a little bit limited on time, so let me get to the second part, offering, offering.
There was never a man in the Old Testament who showed up at the or temple without something to give to the Lord. You ever thought about that? He knew he was coming into the presence of God, he was seeking God, and he always had something to give to God.
Now, we know that was burnt offerings and atonement offerings and offerings of thanksgiving and offerings and grain offerings of an expression of our devotion, but every time a man was going to come into the presence of God, he always had something to give him.
If you went into a presence of a king, let's say you were a foreign ambassador, is that right? Ambassador, good job buddy. Yeah, that's right, I'm from Virginia, I know my stuff. An ambassador, if you came in and you were coming before just a king, you brought him gifts as a sign of appreciation, as a act of thanksgiving unto him.
Now listen, we don't bring any bulls, we don't bring any goats, we already know that atonement has been made through Christ. We know this, but my goodness, if you read the New Testament, you will still find this language all throughout, the giving of gifts to God.
For example, Hebrews 13, 15, through him then let us continually, here it is, offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is the fruit of our lips in giving thanks to him. What do we bring? We bring the fruit of our lips in a continual offering up of praise and thanksgiving unto him.
We don't bring a bull, we don't bring a goat, we don't bring a dove for atonement or to offer up something for our sin, instead we offer up the confession of our lips to him. Hiding nothing, here it is Lord, I have sinned, I have acted selfishly, here it is, take it, forgive me.
Romans 12, therefore I urge you brethren, by the mercies of God, here it is, temple language, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.
Same Old Testament language here, we come before God and we give him our lives, lay it down every time afresh, Lord take it, here I am, it's dust and bones and I know it's nothing, but I give it to you because you're worthy, I bring you myself.
Not only that, we see the same language and it refers to our possessions, you know, our treasures, is it not? Philippians 4 .18, I'm amply supplied, Paul writes, having received from Epaphroditus what you have sent, talking about the Philippian church, a fragrant aroma, an acceptable sacrifice, well-pleasing to God, the things that we have.
So not only do I give myself Lord, but I give my car, I give my house for hospitality, I give my food for those, I give my second coat, if there is one in need of it, I offer it all to you. And even the Apostle Paul, listen to this, it's amazing, Romans 15 .15, he's talking about him being a minister of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles, he says, ministering as a priest, the gospel of God, listen, so that my offering of the Gentiles may be acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit.
When he looked at his ministry, when he looked at the harvest that the Lord was doing from him, it's kind of like the Old Testament stuff, you have that first thing, that first fruit harvest, and that farmer goes out and gets the best of the stock, the best of the crop, and he brings it into the temple and says, this is yours.
When Paul was ministering as a priest of God, proclaiming the gospel, and he was watching souls be redeemed and saved and rescued out of darkness, it was like he was bringing those souls and coming to God and saying, they're yours, here's the harvest.
And even in heaven, my friends, this is the same. What are we seeing we read in heaven? When God moves all those 24 elders, what? They fall down to their knees and worship, and it's as if they don't even have nothing else to give, they're there in heaven, the only thing that's on them to give is what?
The crown upon their head. It's yours. It's yours. That's what I want to, that's the key. And this is the thing that I'm trying to drive into your mind, okay? When you come to the Lord in communion with him, come to give.
That's the key. Come to worship. Come to give. Don't come to get something for you, but come in this matter to just give, give, give. Give your life, give your possessions, give your thanksgivings, give your praise, give your sin, give your ministry, give your family, give your stuff, praise to him.
And that's the key. That's one of the keys when it comes to approaching God in prayer that I have found probably to be the most useful and most helpful thing in my life personally, because the truth of the matter is when you give to him, he gives back to you.
When you have nothing but I give you my sin, he gives you the assurance that you have been forgiven as he ministers the gospel to you afresh. When you give thanksgiving to him and you are lost in his beauty and wonder, he gives to you contentment even though you are experiencing hell upon this earth.
And when you give to him whatever, your possessions, your life afresh, that's when you actually get life. He gives it back to you and that is experiential communion with him, with him. My friends, set it in your mind.
When you come to him, come to give him something. Spend some time right at the beginning without any request. One of the most helpful things that a professor told me is still stuck with me to this day and I still think about it often and still practice it often.
He always said in this semester, I want you to pray one hour without ever making a petition to God. And I thought in me and my little cockiness, that should be easy. Yeah, first time I bowed the knee and started praying was about 30 seconds and it just naturally popped out.
Help, that's a petition. Whatever the case may be, it got to it in a minute, five minutes, back to 30 seconds and then eventually it was developing this aspect in me where I wasn't coming to him to gain anything from him.
I was coming to him out of appreciation, out of love, out to give to him that which he deserves and that's a practice that I typically use at the beginning of my prayer even today, even today and I challenge you, try it.
Tomorrow, don't put it off till next week or whatever, you know, or on Monday if you're traveling today or tomorrow or whatever the case may be, just try it and see, well, it's pretty, well, maybe you're not as selfish as I am, but it was a pretty radical experience.
So how do I, very quickly, because this is typically the question that I would think would happen, so how do I structure things just in my personal life? Now, this is me, this is not you. I have older kids, so I have a lot more freedom than maybe some of you.
Some of you have a lot more freedom than me because maybe you're retired or whatever the case may be. That's where you are at right now. This is the way I wake up at 525 every day. That's the structure, that's the discipline.
I wake up, I take a shower, I throw my backpack on and I go away from my family's house and I go to the heart cry office where I go in, no one's there, and from there, I open up the scriptures and I start reading with intention, prayerfully, trying to just read my daily Bible reading, working through the scriptures just like any normal Christian would, hopefully, normal Christians do.
But I always try to make one mark somewhere in the reading. So I get in the office, usually around 6 a .m., I start my reading, then I usually try to stop around 6 .45 a .m., and that gives me about 15 minutes.
Now, what do I do in that 15 minutes? I always try to find some particular point, verse, area, story, narrative, proverb, whatever the case that sticks out to me in particular from my daily reading. And from there, the next 15 minutes, I go into meditation, honest to goodness.
What does that look like in me? It looks like me standing up. It looks like me walking around my office. If you were outside, you'd probably think I'm a crazy man. I walk around my office and I speak, I work it out before God, whatever the case may be.
Pick a verse. Here, I mean, we just read, as the deer pants for the water brook, so my soul pants for the deer, panting, the desert. And I just work these things out. How is that my soul? God, show me these things.
And I just think through those things in meditative thought, working it out, chewing on the cud before Him. Sometimes it comes easy and my eyes are opened and my heart is inflamed. Other times I walk away and I think, man, I don't get it.
I still don't get it. Like, I'm still trying to grasp it. The old spirit, please teach me these things. And so I do that for about 15 minutes and then I go into my time of prayer, starting on my knees, typically, always starting with worship, always to give first.
And sometimes the Lord opens the heart and I might spend my whole entire time doing that. Now, let me give you some pointers because this is kind of difficult. I'm not going to lie. I always start, and it sounds repetitive, it sounds kind of cheesy, and I know I'm over the time, so this will be the last thing, okay?
But I typically start my sentence like this. I praise you because. I thank you for. Lord, you are. When you start sentences like that, it will not end up in a petition or a question. And you just start thinking, go through his attributes.
I have a, it's kind of like a rose publications thing I keep in my office. It's all the names of Christ. That has been a tremendous help to my soul because I can say you are the shepherd. Oh God, you have led me into still waters.
You lead me out of darkness. I praise you for the crook of shepherd staff that corrects me. I praise you for this, and I just focus on one of his titles or whatever, and next thing you know, I find my heart inflamed toward him.
And guess what? Next thing you know, you find your soul happy in him. And then you petition for the kingdom, for his name, for his glory, and then those you love. Practical. We're late. Shane's going to kill me.
Shane, I'm sorry. I know you're watching this recording right now, but please forgive a dear brother from Virginia. Love you.
Let's pray. Thank you for listening to another sermon from Grace Fellowship Church. You can find us on our website at gfcedmonton .ca, or you can find us on Instagram at gracechurchyig, all one word, or on Facebook at Grace Fellowship Church.
We pray that you have been thoroughly blessed by this recording. God bless you and take care.